Children
living in war-torn Syria, some as young as 12, are self-harming, taking drugs,
and attempting suicide to escape the horrors they have endured after six years
of conflict, an international aid group said on Monday.

One
in four children, around 2.5 million, are on the brink of developing a mental
health disorder, said Save the Children in the most comprehensive report of its
kind to document the mental health of children in Syria.

Nearly
five million Syrians have fled the country since the war began in 2011, but
13.5 million people remain in need of aid in Syria and almost half are
children, according to the United Nations' humanitarian agency, UNOCHA.

Nightmares,
bedwetting, anger, suicidal thoughts and depression are a few of the symptoms
plaguing Syrian children, who suffer from an endless barrage of trauma from
bombings, death and destruction, it said.

Most
of the children interviewed for the report were too fearful to play outside,
have dropped out of school, or have witnessed the death of a friend or
relative.

"About
five to six months ago, a child who was 12 years old committed suicide. We
never had something like this before, even for older people," Syrian
mental health worker Sharif was quoted as saying in the report.

"His
dad was killed in a car bomb. They tried to explain to the child that now your
dad is a martyr and he is going to paradise, so the child thought that if he
died he would see his dad. He hung himself with a scarf."

Toxic
stress

Psychologist
Marcia Brophy, who spoke to 458 Syrian adults and children for the report, said
living in a constant state of fear and anxiety, known as "toxic
stress", could lead to serious long-term health issues.

"These
children, their bodies are in constant 'fight or flight' - and that
accumulative level of toxic stress will undoubtedly have huge long-term
consequences ... and it could lead to lifelong medical issues as well,"
said Brophy.

More
and more children were self-harming, taking drugs and attempting suicide,
Brophy told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, and they were doing so at an
increasingly younger age.

"It's
incredibly troubling. But it's not really surprising given that these children
are living in a highly stressful environment," Brophy said. "It's a
way of coping and dealing with a really abnormal, stressful situation."

She
said communities should talk more openly about mental health, and aid agencies
must make mental health support a priority across all humanitarian situations.

"It's
a taboo issue, it's very hard to talk about. Given that this is a protracted
conflict situation ... we need to have mental health and psychosocial support
integrated into any emergency response," Brophy said.

NEW
DELHI: Pakistan's former national security adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani
reiterated his stand on Monday that the 26/11 attack on Mumbai was a
"classic example" of cross-border terrorism as it was carried out by
a Pakistanbased group. The remark spurred India to ask Pakistan to prosecute
Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed.

"26/11
Mumbai strikes, carried out by a terror group based in Pakistan, was a classic
trans-border terrorist event," Durrani said at a conference on combating
terrorism at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses here. Durrani was
NSA when the attacks were carried out on November 26, 2008. He was sacked the
next year, shortly after he became the first Pakistani official to confirm that
one of the attackers, Ajmal Kasab, was a Pakistani, putting paid to Islamabad's
effort at denial.

On
Monday, in response to questions from reporters, Durrani said Saeed must be
punished though he did not mention the LeT founder as the mastermind of the
attack.

The
admission by Pakistan's former national security adviser that the 26/11 attack
was a "classic example" of cross-border terrorism was all the
evidence Islamabad needed against Lashkar founder Hafiz Saeed, home ministry
officials said.

Ex-NSA
Mahmud Ali Durrani's remarks on Monday, coinciding with Pakistan's claim that
it had listed Saeed under the Anti-Terrorism Act and placed him under "house
arrest", were seen by India as validation of its consistent stand that the
Lashkar chief was the main choreographer of the assault on the country's
financial capital. "Pakistan now doesn't need bigger evidence to prosecute
Hafiz Saeed, it should act immediately," a senior home ministry official
said.

Ministry
officials asserted that India had gathered and handed over "solid
evidence" against all suspects in the 26/11 attack, including the
testimony of David Coleman Headley, to Pakistan and internationally but there
was no headway in the trial in Pakistan.

Officials
in the home ministry and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said the
"least Pakistan can do now is allow Indian investigators to visit there
and help in gathering evidence".

Significantly,
minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju did not seem too excited by Durrani's
fresh statement attributing 26/11 to a Pakistanbased terror group.
"India's position on the Mumbai attacks is very well known. There is
nothing new in this revelation," he said.

Durrani's
remarks, however, did not entirely mirror India's position. For, contrary to
India's stand about ISI's involvement in the Mumbai attack, the former
Pakistani NSA denied any role of Pakistan's state actors in the massacre of
innocents.

Talking
to reporters, Durrani said, "I know (this) for definite. I have very good
information that the government of Pakistan or the ISI (Pakistan's spy agency)
were not involved in 26/11 (terror attack). I am 110% sure."

Asked
to elaborate, Durrani declined to divulge details, saying he was sacked by the
Pakistani government for certain statements he had made regarding the Mumbai
attack. "I made a statement which the government did not like and I got
sacked," he said.

A
few years ago, Durrani had said that after the attacks, the Pakistani
government was only making a fool of itself by not acknowledging that Kasab was
a Pakistani.

Trump
travel ban: new order targeting six Muslim-majority countries signed

6
March 2017

Donald
Trump on Monday signed a revised executive order to reinstate a ban on
immigration from certain Muslim-majority countries and suspend the US refugee
program.

The
new ban, which revokes a previous order issued on 27 January that prompted
instant chaos and was eventually blocked by federal judges, marked a
significant retreat for Trump and his administration’s vigorous defense of the
original travel ban as being within the president’s legal authority. But
activists said they were planning to challenge the new ban.

The
new order seeks to address prior complaints by removing language that granted
priority to religious minorities for refugee resettlement, which had been viewed
as targeting Muslims. It states that Trump’s original directive “was not
motivated by animus toward any religion”, a remark rejected instantly by
refugee advocates and civil liberty groups, who said they planned to challenge
the second order on similar grounds.

It
also includes specific exemptions for lawful permanent residents, who had
initially been covered by the previous order.

And
it removes Iraq from the list of targeted states, and implements a more gradual
roll-out, meaning the new travel ban will not come into full effect for another
10 days.

“Make
no mistake,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Monday in
reference to the changes. “We lost the element of surprise back when the court
enjoined this in the ninth circuit and we had to go back to the drawing board.”

The
president quietly signed the order away from the presence of cameras or the
press, a noteworthy changefrom the original travel ban’s rollout at the
Department of Defense on 27 January.

The
revised ban was instead announced by the heads of the agencies that will be
tasked with overseeing its implementation. Addressing a limited pool of
reporters on Monday, secretary of state Rex Tillerson, Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) secretary John Kelly, and attorney general Jeff Sessions dubbed
the move critical to US national security.

“As
threats to our security continue to evolve and change”, Tillerson said, “common
sense dictates that we continue to reevaluate and reassess the systems that we
rely upon to protect our country.”

The
new travel ban blocks entry to the US for citizens from six of the seven
countries named in Trump’s original order – Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria
and Libya – for a period of 90 days. Iraq was removed from the list after
criticism that the original order overlooked the country’s role in fighting
terrorism and barred entry even to the Iraqi interpreters who had been embedded
with US forces in the region.

“Iraq
is an important ally in the fight to defeat Isis,” Tillerson said Monday.

Unlike
the 27 January order, written by the White House and presented to the agencies
as a fait accompli, an “interagency process” permitted concerns about
second-order effects of the ban to influence the finished product.

In
the weeks since the ban was issued, US military and Pentagon officials have
voiced concerns that their relationship with Iraq, critical to fighting the
Islamic State, would be negatively impacted. A US official said defense
secretary James Mattis and state department officials were responsible for
overseeing “special immigration visas” for Iraqi employees of the US, which
aided in getting Iraq off the ban.

The
revised order will also keep in place a 120-day suspension of the refugee
program, but it will no longer identify Syrian refugees as subject to an
indefinite ban. It also maintains a 50,000 annual cap on America’s refugee
intake, which more than halved president Obama’s pledge to resettle 110,000
refugees in 2017.

Several
other changes to the travel ban served as a tacit acknowledgement that the
original order was hastily crafted and paved the way for a litany of legal
questions.

That
order was temporarily halted by a federal judge just days after it was issued.
The ninth circuit federal appeals court upheld the ruling last month, denying
the justice department’s request to reinstate it.

On
Monday justice department attorneys informed the ninth circuit they believed
the new order was unaffected by the court’s previous ruling. Bob Ferguson, the
Washington state attorney general who brought the case against the federal
government said in a statement he was “carefully reviewing” the new order.

Initial
reaction to the revised order was positive among Republicans. House speaker
Paul Ryan, who was among the few to aggressively defend the administration’s
previous travel ban, said the revised order “advances our shared goal of
protecting the homeland”.

The
White House has continued to defend the travel ban as a pressing matter of
national security. But the administration appeared to undermine its own
rationale by delaying the revised order last week, citing a desire not to crowd
out the positive media coverage that followed Trump’s joint address before
Congress.

Chuck
Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, said the delay was “all the proof Americans
need to know that this has absolutely nothing to do with national security”.

“A
watered down ban is still a ban,” Schumer said in a statement, adding, “It is
mean-spirited, and un-American. It must be repealed.”

Grace
Meng, an immigration researcher for Human Rights Watch’s US program, said the
changes contained within Trump’s revised order were “merely cosmetic”.

“President
Trump still seems to believe you can determine who’s a terrorist by knowing
which country a man, woman or child is from,” Meng said in a statement.

Other
refugee advocacy groups vowed to challenge the order in court, arguing that the
revised language did not alter the intent to discriminate against Muslims.

In
Washington DC on Monday night, protesters gathered near the White House to
denounce the modified ban.

High
school senior Victoria Nicholson, of Woodbridge, Virginia, said she first heard
about the protest from a friend on Twitter. She and a friend rushed to spray
paint a sign before dashing out the door to make it in time.

“I’m
not going to settle for this,” she said. “It makes me so livid to see people
who are OK with what’s going on because none of it is OK - from the ban to the
wall. Nothing he is doing can be justified.”

Arona
Kessler, an administrative assistant from Fairfax County, said she was alarmed
by what she viewed as an attack on a single religion.

“My
great-grandparents came to the US and Canada to flee the holocaust,” she said.
“So it’s very scary to me to see specific groups of people singled out and
targeted like this.”

Officials
at the DHS and State Department told reporters on a conference call Monday the
objective was not to bar individuals on the basis of religion.

“This
is not a Muslim ban in any way, shape, or form,” an official said.

“There
are dozens and hundreds of millions, if not one-point something billion Muslims
who are not subject to this executive order.”

The
emphasis, the official added, was on countries where the US lacked “the ability
to make adequate screening and vetting determinations for nationals under
current procedures”.

But
Trump, as a candidate, called for “a total and complete shutdown” of Muslim
immigration to the US. After the president signed the initial travel ban,
former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, a close associate of Trump’s, said he
asked him how to implement a Muslim ban legally.

“I’ll
tell you the whole history of it: When he first announced it, he said ‘Muslim
ban,’” Giuliani said on Fox News. “He called me up, he said, ‘Put a commission
together, show me the right way to do it legally.’”

Legal
experts say that interview, coupled with Trump’s own repeated statements, will
likely continue to cloud the administration in legal challenges against the
travel ban and its intent.

Findings
from a DHS report, obtained by several news outlets in recent weeks, also cast
doubt on the administration’s rationale.

The
document, the authenticity of which was confirmed by the Guardian but framed by
a DHS spokesperson as “incomplete”, noted that citizens from the countries
identified in Trump’s ban are “rarely implicated in US-based terrorism.”

It
further concluded that citizenship was an “unreliable indicator” of the threat
posed by terrorism to the US.

DHS
officials pushed back on the report in the call with reporters, citing
classified information indicating a more significant threat. The justice
department, they noted, had opened inquiries into 300 “refugees” for potential
links to terrorism. But the officials declined to identify how many of those
individuals came from the countries subject to the travel ban.

Faiza
Patel, the co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the
Brennan Center for Justice, said the term “open counterterrorism investigation”
was not indicative in and of itself that an individual was involved in any
terrorist activity. Under the Bush administration, the DoJ launched 11,667
“assessments” of people and groups from December 2008 to March 2009. But they
resulted in only 427 more intensive investigations.

Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif has reiterated that operation Radd-ul-Fassad will
continue until our homeland is cleared from the scourge of terrorism, reported
Radio Pakistan.

He
said this in a message of condolences over the martyrdom of Captain Junaid and
Sipahi Amjad who martyred while fighting terrorists in district Swabi, on
Tuesday.

The
Prime Minister applauded the valiant fight by the Armed Forces personnel
against terrorists who are attempting to challenge the writ of the state. He
paid rich tributes to the brave soldiers who boldly fought the terrorists and
embraced martyrdom in the line of duty. He said those who embraced Shahadat are
the real heroes and saviors of our nation.

Mian
Nawaz Sharif said Armed Forces are fighting the menace of terrorism to protect
our democratic values, constitution, freedom, and our way of life. He said we
cannot and will not allow our enemies to promote their nefarious designs.

The
Daesh Takfiri terrorist group has imposed an 'Afghan-style' dress code on men
in Syria’s northern province of Raqqah so that its members can’t be
distinguished from civilians.

The
so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights made the revelation on Monday, saying,
"Daesh has imposed Afghan-style dress on residents of Raqqah so that
informants giving coordinates to the US-led coalition will not be able to
distinguish between civilians and fighters."

The
UK-based group’s director, Rami Abdel Rahman, said that civilians and the
families of Daesh terrorists were attempting to flee into Raqqah Province from
neighboring Aleppo.

"Thousands
of families in recent days have tried to reach the administrative borders of
Raqqah Province, along with around 120 families of fighters and commanders of
Daesh," the monitoring group said.

A
Syrian activist also confirmed the report of the dress code imposed by the
terrorist group, adding that, "Anyone who does not comply faces prison and
a fine."

Abu
Mohamed described the situation in Syria’s Raqqah as dire and said there was a
"state of alert" in the northern province.

"Prices
are skyrocketing and there is no electricity or water," he noted.

Syria
has been battling foreign-backed militancy for six years. Over the past few
months, the Syrian army has made significant gains against terrorists,
including the liberation of the strategic city of Aleppo in late 2016.

Syrian
government forces plan to liberate Raqqah from the Daesh Takfiri terror group,
which has named the city as its so-called headquarters in the Arab country.

Since
2014, the United States, along with a number of its allies, has been leading a
so-called anti-terror campaign in Syria and neighboring Iraq.

The
US-led coalition says it is working with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a
coalition of armed groups led by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG),
to try to defeat Daesh in Raqqah. However, there have been numerous reports of
US-led airstrikes targeting Syrian civilians, military and infrastructure.

"Representatives
of militants in more regions have inked peace agreement with the Damascus
government in the last 24 hours," the Russian center said, adding,
"The total number of regions, towns, settlements and villages that have
thus far joined nationwide reconciliation process stands at 1,317."

The
Russian center added that 121 groups have so far joined the peace agreement
with the Syrain government and army.

In
February, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad extended a decree on amnesty for
militants who surrender and hand over their weapons until the end of June.

The
decree 15/2016 dated July 28, 2016 was extended by President Assad until June
30, 2017, according to a state news agency report.

The
above-mentioned order was initially issued for the period of three months and
on October 27, 2016 was prolonged for the same period. The amnesty also covers
kidnappers who agree to release their hostages.

Full
report at:

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13951217000369

--------

Iraqi
forces battling ISIS gain control of key Mosul sites

7
March 2017

Elite
Iraqi security forces dislodged ISIS militants from the main government
building in Mosul on Tuesday, their last major city stronghold in Iraq, an
Iraqi spokesman said.

A
special Rapid Response team stormed the Nineveh governorate building and the
surrounding government complex in an overnight operation, Lieutenant Colonel
Abdel Amir al-Mohammadawi, a spokesman for the elite interior ministry unit,
told Reuters.

"They
killed tens from Daesh," he said, referring to ISIS by one of its Arabic
acronyms.

Recapturing
the site would help Iraqi forces attack the militants in the nearby old city
center and mark a symbolic step toward restoring state authority over Mosul,
even though the buildings are destroyed and not being used by ISIS.

Iraq
expressed “deep relief” at US President Donald Trump’s decision to remove Iraq
from a list of countries targeted in a US travel ban, the Iraqi foreign
ministry said in a statement on Monday.

“The
decision is an important step in the right direction, it consolidates the
strategic alliance between Baghdad and Washington in many fields, and at their
forefront war on terrorism,” the statement said.

Trump
signed a new executive order on Monday banning travel to the United States by
citizens of six Muslim-majority nations after his controversial first attempt
was blocked in the courts, a White House source said.

A
senior White House official said the new executive order would keep a 90-day
ban on travel to the United States by citizens of six Muslim-majority nations -
Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Iraq
was taken off the list of countries in the original order, issued on Jan. 27,
because the Iraqi government had imposed new vetting procedures, such as
heightened visa screening and data sharing, and because of its work with the
United States in countering Islamic State militants, the official said.

The
army troops started a new round of battle against Al-Nusra Front in Dara'a
al-Balad district and seized several residential complexes.

A
machinegun-equipped position of the terrorists Southeast of Balal Habashi grand
mosque was destroy in the attack, while the Al-Nusra suffered several
casualties in the clashes.

The
army troops had last stormed Al-Nusra's positions in Dara'a al-Balad district
on Sunday, pushing terrorists back from a number of residential complexes.

The
army units, meantime, targeted the movements and concentration centers of
Al-Nusra in al-Mesri square and the neighborhoods of al-Karak and al-Arbaeen in
Dara'a city, killing a number of militants.

Full
report at:

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13951217000445

--------

Pentagon
plan calls for more US participation in attack against ISIS

6
March 2017

The
US pentagon has issued a plan for the upcoming attack on ISIS’ capital of Raqqa
in Syria.

According
to the Washington Post, the plan calls for more US military participation,
including increased Special Operations forces, helicopters, artillery and arms
supplies.

US
troops will not be involved in ground combat yet, however, the plan proposes
easing some of the restrictions put by the Obama administration on US
participation in Syria.

The
plan proposes increasing the 500 US advisers currently working with Syrian
Democratic Forces.

Yemeni
army soldiers, backed by fighters from allied Popular Committees, have
reportedly launched an attack against Saudi border guards in the kingdom’s
southwestern region of Jizan, leaving two troopers dead.

A
military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Arabic-language
al-Masirah television network that Yemeni snipers fatally shot two Saudi
troopers in the al-Dokhan military base of the region, located 967 kilometers southwest
of Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh, on Monday afternoon.

The
source added that the attack was in retaliation for Riyadh’s relentless aerial
bombardment campaign against Yemen.

The
development came on the same day that Yemeni military sources announced that as
many as 152 Saudi soldiers had been gunned down by Yemeni forces and Popular
Committees fighters over the past four months.

The
sources, requesting not to be named, said Yemeni soldiers and their allies
carried out sniper operations against the kingdom’s southwestern border regions
last month, leaving 36 Saudi soldiers dead.

Most
of the operations were conducted in Jizan, where a total of 27 Saudi troopers
lost their lives in 24 encounters.

Yemeni
snipers also performed four operations in Najran, situated 844 kilometers south
of Riyadh, where six Saudi soldiers were killed. Three operations in Asir
claimed the lives of three Saudi troopers as well.

Moreover,
a total of 33 Saudi soldiers were killed in sniper operations during January. A
total of 93 Saudi troopers were also killed in the last two months of 2016.

Nearly
two dozen Houthi fighters killed in Saudi strike, clashes

Meanwhile,
at least 16 Houthi Ansarullah fighters were killed on Monday when Saudi fighter
jets launched an aerial attack in Yemen's western coastal province of Hudaydah.

A
medical official and a military source, both requesting anonymity, said the
strike targeted a military base in the city of Bajil.

They
added that 23 Houthi fighters also sustained injuries in the attack.

Separately,
clashes between Ansarullah members and Saudi-backed militiamen loyal to
resigned Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi near the Red Sea port city of
Mukha, situated 346 kilometers south of Sana'a, left seven Houthis dead.

According
to the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, the
Saudi military campaign has claimed the lives of 10,000 Yemenis and left 40,000
others wounded.

The
Arabic language desk of Sputnik quoted the source as saying that the Manbij
Military Council has delivered control of six villages to the Syrian army
troops.

Sputnik
added that the villages were in contact line with forces of the Turkey-led
Euphrates Shield Operation in Manbij.

The
news agency said that the six villages had been seized back from the ISIL
during the Al-Bab liberation operation.

The
villages are located some 22km to West of Manbij.

Sputnik
went on to say that the US army has deployed its forces and equipment in Manbij
city, raising its flag in the city.

The
military council of Manbij announced in a statement on Thursday that the Kurdish
forces would surrender the villages bordering the areas occupied by the
Turkey-backed Euphrates Shield Operation militants to the Syrian army.

Then,
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Thursday announced that his
government called on the US to evacuate the Kurds from Manbij in Aleppo
province immediately, rejecting the agreement between the Kurds and the
Damascus government.

Cavusoglu
referred to the Euphrates Shield Operation in Northern Syria by the
Turkey-backed militants, and told reporters that the Turkish forces did not
move towards Manbij but they would start operations in the region soon.

Noting
that the Turkish military men were ready to attack the Kurds in Manbij, he said
that Ankara did not want Washington to continue support for the Kurds and it
had several times warned the US that the Turkish forces would attack the Kurds
soon.

Cavusoglu
also said that Ankara and Moscow agreed
to prevent clashes between the Syrian government forces and the Turkey-backed
opposition (the Free Syrian Army militants), claiming that both of them pursue
the same goal of annihilating the ISIL.

Elsewhere,
he stood up to an agreement between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces
(SDF) and Russia to surrender the villages controlled by the Kurds in Manbij to
the Syrian government.

His
remarks came as the military council of Manbij announced in a statement that
the Kurdish forces will surrender the villages bordering the areas occupied by
the Turkey-backed Euphrates Shield Operation militants to the Syrian army.

The
statement said that based on an agreement with the Russian side, the control of
these villages will be given to the Syrian government's border guards.

It
added that the measure will be taken to maintain the security of civilians
residing in Manbij and the surrounding areas as well as regions bordering
al-Bab in the Western side of Manbij, and take on the greed of Turkey to occupy
the Syrian territories. The statement was issued after sources in Tal Rifat
Town's Military Council affiliated to the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA)
militant group disclosed on Wednesday that the council forces will no more
partner in the Euphrates Shield Operations against ISIL in Northeastern Aleppo
as they are preparing to shift war to their Kurdish rivals within the Syrian
Democratic Forces (SDF).

The
Turkey-backed Euphrates Shield Operations is fought by various units of the SDF
and backed up by the Turkish army. The SDF is comprised of a Kurdish majority
and a minority of Arab fighters mostly from different units of FSA and defected
members of Ahrar al-Sham and Al-Nusra that are all called as moderate militants
by the US, Turkey and their allies.

The
Kurdish units of the SDF have long been complaining that they are fighting on
the frontline and, hence, sustain most casualties, and whenever they earn a
victory, "the Turkish army sends them to other battle scenes and delivers
control over conquered lands to the Arab FSA.

Cavusoglu's
warning that the Turkish military men are readying to attack the Kurds in
Manbij came after the militant-affiliated Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
(SOHR) on Wednesday reported some sources in Tal Rifat Military Council as
saying that the council would stop its mission under the Ankara-backed
Euphrates Shield Operation to start battling the Kurdish members of the SDF in
Northern Aleppo to capture the villages under their control.

The
SOHR further added that the Tal Rifat Military Council that is operating under
the FSA is getting back to the region (Northern Aleppo) with its forces and military
equipment to start attacking the Kurdish forces in their positions.

In
response to the militants' invasion plan, the Syrian army initiated plans to
tighten security measures across the regions stretching from East Aleppo to the
Kurdish populated territories in Afrin Canton to block any possible advance by
either the ISIL or the Turkish soldiers and their allied militants fighting for
the Ankara-backed Euphrates Shield Operation.

A
top placed military source revealed that the Syrian Army intends to carry out a
clean-up operation in the towns of Jubb al-Sultan, al-Za'aroureh, Jubb al-Homam
and Jubb al-Khafa and the villages South of Manbij to strengthen its lines of
defense along the strip that stretches to the Kurdish-held region in
Northeastern Aleppo in order to prevent any effort by the ISIL terrorists to
bypass the government-held regions.

Cavusoglu
displayed his country's anger and opposition to the agreement between the Kurds
and the Syrian army by denying it, claiming that "there are all sorts of
news and speculation. This is all untrue. We are now seeing that the Syrian
government forces are moving to the East".

But
the Turkish foreign minister, meantime, stated that Moscow and Ankara agreed on
the prevention of clashes between Turkey-backed opposition Free Syrian Army
(FSA) and government forces.

"We
have agreed with Russia on the prevention of clashes between the [FSA] and the
Syrian government forces in order to intensify the fight against ISIL,"
Cavusoglu said on Thursday.

But
later reports by other world media confirmed FNA's Thursday report over the
agreement.

The
villages will be surrendered to the Syrian government in the coming days, an
official in the Manbij Military Council told Reuters. An earlier statement by
the council said the villages would be handed to Syrian border guards.

Turkish
President Tayyip Erdogan said this week Manbij was the next target of Ankara's
campaign in northern Syria following the capture of nearby al-Bab from ISIL
last week.

"We
will move towards Manbij after the al-Bab operation is completed, but the
operation has not started yet. We know that the US special forces are in that
region, and we want the YPG to leave Manbij as soon as possible,"
Cavusoglu said.

In
February 2016, The Kurdish “People’s Protection Units” (YPG) prevailed over the
terrorists in the highly strategic city of Tal Rifat in Northern Aleppo and
captured the city. YPG constitutes the Kurdish section of the SDF that also
includes the Turkey-backed Arab FSA militants.

But
months later, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the Kurdish
fighters to leave all areas under their control in Northwestern Syria and move
to the territories on the Eastern side of the Tishrin Dam on the Euphrates.

The
Kurdish population lives in three regions, known as Cantons, in Northern Syria,
with the Afrin Canton being located on the Western side of the Euphrates
stretching over the Northern parts of Aleppo province with Manbij as its most
important and most internationally known town.

The
Kurdish fighters won back Manbij from ISIL in weeks of bloody war on August 8,
2016. A few months later, the Turkish president warned the Kurds to withdraw
from the town and surrender it to the Turkish army or wait for a massive
attack.

In
mid-November 2016, Spokesman for the Manbij Military Council Sherfan Dervish
voiced his forces' readiness to fight against the ISIL terrorists and Turkish
army in Aleppo province in Northern Syria.

"The
Manbij military council is ready to repel any possible attack by the ISIL and
Turkey," Dervish told FNA at the time.

Full
report at:

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13951216001352

--------

Tensions
Intensifying among Terrorist Groups in Syria's Idlib

Mar
06, 2017

The
Arabic language al-Ahd news website reported that the Al-Nusra Front (recently
renamed to Fatah al-Sham Front) that forms the main part of Tahrir al-Sham
Hay'at started to set up a command post near the Ahrar al-Sham' checkpoint in
Bab al-Hawa square only 300 meters away from the main gate of Bab al-Hawa
border crossing.

Al-Ahd
added that Ahrar al-Sham, in response, reinvigorated its positions in the
region to block any possible attack by Al-Nusra.

"Meantime,
a commander of Tahrir al-Sham said that the Hay'at intends to conclude a new
agreement with Ahrar al-Sham to grant the control of the Bab al-Hawa border
passage to a third party, possibly Faylaq al-Sham," al-Ahd added.

In
the meantime, Tahrir al-Sham took control of Ahrar al-Sham's checkpoints in the
villages of al-Mastoumeh and Kafr Yamhoul in Southern Idlib.

Also,
sources affiliated to the terrorist groups said that top commanders of Ahrar
al-Sham have held a meeting to decide about their response to the recent
attacks of Tahrir al-Sham Haya'at on their positions.

Websites
affiliated to the terrorist groups disclosed on Saturday that heavy infighting
resumed between the two main terrorist groups of Ahrar al-Sham and Tahrir
al-Sham Hay'at in the province of Idlib
and Aleppo once again.

The
websites reported that Tahrir al-Sham Hay'at stormed the positions of Ahrar
al-Sham in the Salqin town in Northwestern Idlib and arrested a number of Ahrar
terrorists, trying to capture their positions including a main base of them
used for manufacturing weapons.

In
the meantime, differences over dispatching forces and equipment to Western
Aleppo pushed Ahrar al-Sham and Tahrir al-Sham Hay'at into heavy fighting near
the ICARDA farms in Southern Aleppo.

A
Syrian source said meantime that differences between the largest terrorist
groups in Idlib have pushed the province towards massive infighting among
militants once again.

The
source added that some of the terrorist units in the Northern parts of Idlib
and Aleppo provinces joined Ahrar al-Sham after infighting restarted between
the two rival groups.

Late
in January, Al-Nusra Front and several militant groups declared forming a new
coalition under the name of Tahrir Al-Sham Hay'at to narrow down widening rifts
amongst their commanders and members.

The
Al-Nusra Front, Nouralddeen al-Zinki Movement, Jeish al-Sonah, Jabhat
Ansaraldeen and Liwa al-Haq announced that they would act under a united
coalition named the Tahrir al-Sham Hay'at.

The
five merged terrorist groups act under the command of Abu Jaber Hashem
al-Sheikh, who was one of the commanders of Ahrar al-Sham. The new coalition
led by al-Sheikh is now fighting against Ahrar al-Sham, a rival terrorist group
operating mainly in Northwestern Syria.

Full
report at:

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13951216001395

--------

Syrian
Army Marching on Terrorist Groups' Centers in Eastern Damascus

Mar
06, 2017

The
army troops engaged in fierce clashes with terrorists near Harasta town
Northeast of Damascus city and advanced against them in the gardens near
Harasta, taking control over two positions of the terrorists.

In
the meantime, the army men pushed the terrorists back from al-Wadi grand mosque
and al-Nour driving school on the Western side of Harasta highway.

Local
sources said that the army soldiers also drove terrorists out of the gardens in
Tishrin district adjacent to al-Qaboun district.

Security
sources said earlier today that the army soldiers are about to start a second
phase of their operation against Al-Nusra Front (recently renamed to Fatah
al-Sham Front) and enter al-Qaboun.

The
sources said that the army soldiers have won back the entire farms in al-Qaboun
region and will kick off the second phase of their attacks against Al-Nusra and
will enter al-Qaboun district soon.

The
sources added that the army ground forces, backed up by missile units and the
country's Air Force, drove the Al-Nusra Front out of the entire farms, gardens
and buildings in the surrounding areas of al-Qaboun's.

Full
report at:

.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13951216000985

--------

Saudi
Shoura Council considers deporting 5 mln illegal migrants

7
March 2017

The
Saudi Shoura Council is discussing a system of regulations to combat illegal
migration in the kingdom, which aims to establish a commission in the interior
ministry to deport five million foreigners who have illegally settled in the
country, Al-Hayat daily reported.

Doctor
Sadqa Fadel who submitted the proposal said a relatively large number of people
enter the kingdom through different routes, with the sole purpose of
permanently settling or residing there. He added this is illegal because it
violates all of the kingdom’s regulations as well as international laws.

According
to Fadel, most of these illegal migrants are from Africa and Asia.

Russia
says one of its servicemen has been killed in an attack by Takfiri Daesh
terrorists in central Syria.

The
Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Monday that Private Artyom
Gorbunov had been killed near the ancient city of Palmyra, situated 215
kilometers northeast of the Syrian capital, Damascus, on March 2.

The
statement said that the 24-year-old soldier “was guarding a group of Russian
military advisers in the Syrian Arab Republic” at the time.

Gorbunov
was later granted a posthumous state decoration. His death brought the total
number of Russian casualties in Syria so far to 28.

Russia
has been offering military help to the Syrian government since September 2015.
The Russian military assistance, in the form of an aerial campaign and advisory
support, came on a request from the government in Damascus, which has been
fighting a foreign-backed militancy in the country since 2011.

Daesh
first overran Palmyra in 2015. In March 2016, Syrian government forces
liberated the city. However, they lost control over most of Palmyra again in
mid-December 2016. Early this month, Syrian government forces, receiving
Russian aerial support, once again established control over Palmyra, driving
the terrorists out.

Syrian
engineers are now examining the historic part of Palmyra, looking for mines and
other hidden ordnance.

NEW
DELHI: Pakistan-based terror groups finance terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir by
generating millions in donations through their charity organisations, an NIA
officer said today.

Falah-e-Insaniat
Foundation (FIF), a charity run by terror outfits Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and Al Rehmat Trust, backed by another terrorists group
Jaish-e- Mohammed (JeM), have been supporting terrorists and funding terrorism
in Kashmir, said Atul Goel, Superintendent of Police, National Investigation
Agency (NIA).

Goel
said the NIA was looking into the activities of JuD, LeT and JeM and also the
working of trusts associated with them in Pakistan.

"These
outfits collect donations from people in Pakistan and then pass on the money to
finance terrorism in Kashmir through their overground workers," he said,
addressing a session at the 19th Asian Security Conference on 'Combating
Terrorism: Evolving an Asian Response'. The session was chaired by former home
secretary G K Pillai.

'Al
Rehmat Trust' distributes pamphlets to raise funds for sacrificing animals
during Eid and after collecting the money, they finance terrorism, the officer
said.

FIF,
one of the major and fastest growing non-government organisations in Pakistan,
also collects money from people and uses them to fund terrorists, Goel said.

"JuD
chief Hafiz Saeed addresses the volunteers of FIF. They have an entire network
of people who work for their agenda of fomenting terror in Kashmir," he
said.

NEW
DELHI: India on Monday renewed its pitch for early adoption of a global
convention by the UN to effectively combat terrorism, terming the menace the
single biggest threat to international peace and security.

In
an obvious reference to Pakistan, defence minister Manohar Parrikar said India
has been a victim of "proxy war" for several decades and that there
was a need for developing an Asian approach to push the global fight against
terror networks.

Calling
for early adoption of India-backed Comprehensive Convention on International
Terrorism (CCIT) by the UN, Parrikar said terror remains the "most
pervasive and serious challenge" to international security and an united
approach to deal with it was very important.

He
was speaking at a conference on combating terrorism at the Institute of Defence
Studies and Analysis.

Parrikar
said there must be action against entities which fund terror groups, propagate
their ideologies and provide safe havens to terror groups and added that India
has been seeking inclusion of these provisions in the CCIT.

Talking
about issues relating to global security, Parrikar also mentioned about
challenges like global uncertainty, revival of populist movements, heightened
nationalism, backlash against globalisation and possible closing of borders by
several countries. The Union minister said Asia has been victim of some of the
most dreaded terrorist networks and a strong regional push from Asia will exert
more pressure on rest of the world to adapt a cohesive framework to combat terror.

Without
giving specific details, he said India experienced almost seven per cent of the
total terror attacks globally.

"Terrorism
remains the most pervasive and serious challenge to international security.
Developing a serious and cognitive global response to it is very important but
seemingly very difficult to achieve," he said.

Parrikar
said India will continue to push for shutting down terror camps, imposing ban
on all terror groups, prosecuting all terrorists under special law and making
cross-border terror an extraditable offence under the CCIT.

"Terrorism
is undoubtedly the single biggest threat to international peace and security.
While the threat is transnational, response does not appear to be coordinated
even though there is a broad consensus on what constitutes an act of
terror," he said.

He
said the arch of terrorism was expanding in Asia and there was a need for a
regional approach to defeat terror.

Quoting
a global report, he said record number of countries have been experiencing a
high level of terrorism which surged by 6 per cent in 2016 over the preceding
year.

Four
groups — ISIS, Boko Haram, Taliban and al-Qaida — were responsible for 74 per
cent of all forms of terrorism, he added.

Referring
to a UN report, he said ISIS affiliated groups carried out attacks in 29
countries in 2016 which is almost double in comparison to 2014.

He
said some 60 million people have been impacted by conflict and violence.

Parrikar
also emphasised on the need to combat "complicated webs of terror
financing", noting that a holistic approach is needed to combat terror
effectively.

He
said it is also important to counter the misuse of the internet through social
media by terrorist entities.

NEW
DELHI: The conspiracy charge against senior BJP leaders L K Advani, Murli
Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti in a Babri Masjid demolition case could be
revived, with the Supreme Court noting that the charge was dropped on a
technicality and suggesting joint trial of the accused+ .

The
demolition case was back in focus just ahead of the final round of polling in
Uttar Pradesh as a bench of Justices P C Ghose and R F Nariman said the
conspiracy charge was dropped merely on a technical ground. The conspiracy
charge was dropped by a Rae Bareli trial court.

At
present, the trial against BJP leaders is going on in a Rae Bareli court on
charges other than conspiracy while proceedings against "unknown
persons" (kar sevaks who were around the disputed structure) are on in a
Lucknow court. Appearing for CBI, additional solicitor general Neeraj Kaul stuck
to the stand taken during the tenure of the UPA government seeking revival of
conspiracy charges and said the agency was agreeable to clubbing both trial
proceedings. The bench posted the case for March 22.

There
are two sets of cases — one against L K Advani and other political and
religious heads who were on the dais at Ram Katha Kunj in Ayodhya in December
1992 when the Babri Masjid fell, while the other case was against unknown
karsevaks who had clambered on to and were around the disputed structure.

CBI
filed a chargesheet against Advani and 20 others under Section 153A (promoting
enmity between classes), Section 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to
national integration) and Section 505 (false statements, rumours circulated
with the intent to cause mutiny or disturb public peace). The agency had
subsequently invoked charges under Section 120 B (criminal conspiracy) that
were quashed by the special court against 13 persons including Advani.

NEW
DELHI: Pakistan is reportedly not happy with India yesterday installing what is
its tallest and heaviest flag that can be seen from Lahore.

The
flag was installed very close to the India-Pakistan border in Attari . This
installation is 110 metres high, 24 metres wide and weighs 55 tons. The cost to
make it - a whopping Rs 3.5 crore.

Islamabad
believes India could use this giant flag for espionage purposes, ANI reported.
Pakistan's Rangers have also reportedly conveyed its unhappiness to the Border
Security Force and asked India to move the flag away from the border.

This
flag was a project of the Amritsar Improvement Trust Authority of the Punjab
government. Punjab minister Arun Joshi told reporters it was his dream project.

"With
the Model Code of Conduct for the Assembly elections being in place in the
state, the minister got special permission from the Election Commission for the
inauguration," officials said.

Made
by Reza Aslan, it featured the extreme forms of practice of the Aghoris,
including eating of human corpses.

The
portrayal of Hinduism in a CNN show on Sunday night has drawn strong protests
from many Indian-American groups that found it negative and devoid of adequate
understanding of the religion. The episode on Aghoris in the CNN serial
‘Believer’ made by religious scholar Reza Aslan had graphic images of the
marginal sect’s extreme forms of practicing their faith. “Eating human corpses?
How far would you go to prove your faith? Enter the world of the Aghori,” the
CNN said in a tweet promoting the show.

The
Hindu American Foundation (HAF) and American Hindus Against Defamation (AHAD)
were among the organisations that protested. Democratic Congressman from
California, Ro Khanna, also expressed his disappointment. “Aslan has free
speech! But sad he has made a career of sensationalism over scholarship re:
Christianity & Hinduism,” he said on twitter. Mr. Aslan’s works on
Christianity have been found offensive by many Christian groups in America.

Shock
religion porn: HAF chief

HAF
leader Suhag Shukla termed the show “shock religion porn.” “What does it mean
to live without fear? It means CNN and “experts” like ‪@rezaaslan
don’t engage in shock religion porn,” she said. “It will promote ignorance
about Hindu traditions and promote ridicule of Hindu children in the schools. For
example, a teacher has requested CNN on Facebook if the Hindu-related episode
will be available for teaching ancient Indian history to her sixth grade class!
… this will have wider Hinduphobic societal impact,” Ajay Shah, convener of
AHAD said. At a time when racial prejudices may be increasing and violence
targeting Indians is on the rise, such portrayal of Hinduism is unhelpful,
these groups have said.

“Challenging
Islam as a doctrine,” Ali Rizvi told me, “is very different from demonizing
Muslim people.” Rizvi, a self-identified ex-Muslim, is the author of a new book
titled The Atheist Muslim: A Journey from Religion to Reason. One of the book’s
stated aims is to uphold this elementary distinction: “Human beings have rights
and are entitled to respect. Ideas, books, and beliefs don’t, and aren’t.”

The
problem for Rizvi is that the grain of Western political culture is currently
against him. Those in the secular West live in an age when ideas are commonly
regarded as “deeds” with the potential to wound. So, on the left, self-critique
of Islam is often castigated as critique of Muslims. Meanwhile, the newly
elected president of the United States and his inner circle have a tendency to
conflate the ideas of radical Islam with the beliefs of the entire Muslim
population. So, on the right, the very same self-critique of Islam is used to
attack Muslims and legitimize draconian policies against them.

One
possible response to this problem is to back down and stay silent. The Atheist
Muslim is a sustained argument for why silence is not an option. I met up with
Rizvi in his hometown of Toronto recently to discuss his reasoning.

Rizvi
told me he wrote his book to give other ex-Muslims and wavering Muslims a
reference point. He particularly had in mind those atheists, agnostics, and
humanists who live in Muslim-majority countries where the act of renouncing
one’s faith is punishable by death. Rizvi, who was born in 1975 in Pakistan,
where blasphemy carries a potential death sentence, and who lived for more than
a decade in Saudi Arabia prior to becoming a permanent resident in Canada in
1999, knows all too well how dangerous public declarations of disbelief can be.

In
contrast to other prominent ex-Muslim activists, like the Somali-born Ayaan
Hirsi Ali, there is no atrocity, trauma, or turbulence in Rizvi’s narrative. He
grew up in a loving and supportive family. His parents are Shia Muslims, but
they are “secular and relatively liberal” professors, he said. It wasn’t until
his late teens that he began to seriously question his faith. According to
Rizvi, when he told his parents about his atheism, “they were fine with it. We
had arguments, but I wasn’t going to get disowned.” On the day The Atheist
Muslim came out, his mother told him, “Your book will do well, inshallah” (“God
willing”). To me, he joked, “If she’d told me that before, I would have put it
as a blurb on the cover!”

In
Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion, the sociologist Phil Zuckerman makes
a distinction between “transformative apostasy” and “mild apostasy.” The former
refers to “individuals who were deeply, strongly religious who then went on to
reject their religion,” whereas the latter refers to those “who rejected
religion but weren’t all that religious in the first place.” Rizvi belongs to
the latter category. “I was a nominal believer,” he told me.

One
criticism that has been leveled at ex-Muslims is that they are prone to
fundamentalism, trading one form of zealotry for another. In Murder in
Amsterdam, for example, the Dutch writer and academic Ian Buruma
controversially ascribed to Hirsi Ali “hints of zealousness, echoes perhaps of
her earlier enthusiasm for the Muslim Brotherhood, before she was converted to
the ideals of the European Enlightenment.” This type of psychological
observation seems way off in the case of Rizvi, who has a successful career
outside of his public role as a former Muslim: He is a medical communications
professional and a gifted musician who plays and sings in a rock band. For
Rizvi, Islam was never an all-defining identity, and neither is his current
ex-Muslim status.

In
his book, Rizvi describes himself as an “agnostic atheist,” someone who doesn’t
believe in God, but who is open to the possibility that he or she may be wrong.
He also admits that when he fully abandoned his faith he was initially
reluctant to embrace the “atheist” label. “The stereotype of atheists was of
strident, aggressive, arrogant know-it-alls. … This is not how I wanted to
identify. I was humbled by everything I did not know, and everything I could
not know,” he writes. “It was later that I realized atheism is a position of
humility, in contrast to theism, which claims to know the truth, and moreover,
deems it divine and absolute.”

In
Letters to a Young Contrarian, the anti-theist Christopher Hitchens confided
that he found “something suspect even in the humblest believer” on account of
their “arrogant” assumption that they are “an object of real interest to a
Supreme Being” and their claim “to have at least an inkling of what that
Supreme Being desires.” Rizvi, who counts “the Hitch” as an intellectual hero,
is clearly opposed to this line of critique. He writes about Muslims with great
humanity and feeling. He also remains culturally wedded to Islam, celebrating
Eid and enjoying the feasts of Ramadan.

Yet
he is trenchantly critical of canonical religious texts. “Most Muslims are
moderate, but whoever wrote the Quran, that’s not a moderate person,” he said.
Rizvi devotes an entire chapter of his book to exposing what he sees as the
flagrantly illiberal elements in Quranic scripture. Referring to the chapter on
women, Surah An-Nisa, he writes: “It establishes a hierarchy of authority,
where men are deemed to be ‘in charge’ of women. It also asks wives to be
obedient to their husbands, and allows their husbands—in the most controversial
part of the verse—to beat them if they fear disobedience.”

PESHAWAR:
The TransAction Alliance and other civil society organisations have expressed
grave concerns over arrest of 35 transgender persons in Saudi Arabia and urged
the Saudi government to release the details so that their families could take
necessary steps for their release.

Addressing
a news conference at Peshawar Press Club on Monday, TransAction Alliance
provincial president Farzana Jan shared details about arrest of the transgender
persons and death of two of them in police custody in Saudi Arabia.

“We
want to know the details, under what charges the people have been arrested,
what is their medical condition and if they are alive,” she said and added that
she had received information about death of two transgender persons in police
custody but no one knew where their bodies were.

Farzana
said that her organisation would receive the bodies of the two transgender
persons if they were not buried in Saudi Arabia. She demanded of the Saudi
government to release the detained persons on humanitarian grounds.

TransAction
Alliance chief says two of arrested persons died in custody of Saudi police

Farzana
said that a group of transgender persons gathered on February 26 in Riyadh for
a meeting when personnel Azizia police station picked them. They were packed
into sacks and thrashed with sticks by police as a result two of them, Amina
from Swat and Menno from Peshawar, died, she added.

Flanked
by rights activist Qamar Naseem, Pakhtunkhwa Civil Society Network coordination
Taimur Kamal, she that she was ready to share the details about the transgender
community in Saudi Arabia only to National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR)
Pakistan and Senator Farhatullah Babar, member of Senate committee on
amalgamated persons, because the information could put lives of relevant
persons at risk in Saudi Arabia.

Farzana
said that the arrested persons should be presented to a court of law if they
were involved in any kind of crime.

Nobody
deserved to be punished for gender identity, she added.

She
said that the 35 arrested persons belonged to various parts of Pakistan
including Karachi, Sargodha, Charsadda, Peshawar and Mardan.

ISLAMABAD:
Express­ing grief over the killing of five army personnel in the cross-border
terrorist attack in Mohmand Agency, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday said
that sacrifices rendered by the country’s soldiers while defending the
motherland were the “real lifeline of nation”.

“The
soldiers who sacrificed their life are our real heroes and the nation promises
to honour them by standing firm against terrorists’ nefarious designs that
attack our way of life,” the prime minister said in a statement.

He
said Pakistan would become stronger “because our men in uniform are vigilant at
our borders and in urban centres”.

“Terrorists
are mistaken if they think they can weaken the resolve of our nation,” he
added.

Full
report at:

https://www.dawn.com/news/1318930

--------

Asif
lashes out at Kabul over failure to combat terrorists

AMIR
WASIM

7
March 2017

ISLAMABAD:
Defending the government’s decision to close the country’s border with
Afghanistan, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Monday lashed out at the authorities
in Kabul over their failure to take action against the terrorists using Afghan
soil against Pakistan.

Delivering
a fiery speech in the National Assembly on the opening day of its spring
session, the minister declared that closing the border was Pakistan’s sovereign
right and the government would take every step necessary to defend the
“country’s interests”.

The
minister took the floor when some opposition members, while speaking on matters
of public importance, criticised the government for its decision to close the
border with Afghanistan and termed it an act of victimisation against Pakhtuns.

Mocking
the Afghan government’s claim that it did not have control over the areas being
used by the terrorists, he said: “If you have no control over the territories,
stop calling them part of Afghanistan.”

Defence
minister says Afghan border can’t be used as ‘thoroughfare’

Mr
Asif said that previously Pakistan used to face criticism over the use of North
Waziristan’s territory by terrorists, but the government spent Rs2 billion to
clear the area of terrorists.

Pointing
out a nexus between India and Afghanistan, he alleged that India had outsourced
the task of carrying out terrorist activities in Pakistan to Afghanistan. He
informed the house that five soldiers had lost their lives early Monday morning
due to an attack from Afghanistan’s side. “What else can we do other than
closing down the border?” he asked.

“Our
murderers are sitting on their border and you are pleading us not to close down
the borders. We want to have a proper border management with Afghanistan like
all the countries have with their neighbouring countries. We will not allow it
(border) to be used as a thoroughfare. Closing the border is our right,” the
minister declared in categorical terms.

He
said there were nearly 200 entry and exit points along the country’s border
with Afghanistan, of which 16 were active and nine most active. He said
Afghanistan was “resisting” the efforts to implement a proper management
system.

Mr
Asif said Pakistan allowed entry to thousands of people from Afghanistan
requiring minimum documents, whereas those who travelled from Pakistan to
Afghanistan required proper documentation and the “whole process is not
even-handed”.

The
minister asked the opposition parties not to do politics on the issue since “it
is a national security matter”. He said the government believed that the peace
in Pakistan and Afghanistan was interlinked, adding that Pakistan was still
ready to cooperate with Afghanistan in the war against terrorism.

Imran
under attack

The
minister indirectly criticised Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran
Khan for opposing the idea of holding the final of the Pakistan Super League
(PSL) in Lahore. Without naming Mr Khan, he said the people turned out in a
large number to witness the match and thus sent a clear message to the
terrorists and those who had been terming the decision of holding the match in
Pakistan “foolishness”.

Mr
Asif’s remarks agitated the otherwise peaceful opposition members, particularly
those belonging to the PTI as a number of party members sought the floor to
respond to the minister’s remarks.

Sensing
the sensitivity of the matter, Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi gave the
floor to Leader of the Opposition Syed Khurshid Shah, instead of any PTI
lawmaker.

The
deputy speaker later allowed PTI’s parliamentary leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi to
speak after Mr Shah in a bid to avert what could have become a confrontation.

The
opposition leader said a cold war being fought between Afghanistan and Pakistan
and the current situation warranted convening of an in-camera session of
parliament. He said the country was facing serious challenges on the diplomatic
front, but the government had not so far appointed a foreign minister.

Full
report at:

https://www.dawn.com/news/1318936

--------

PUC
strips Maulana Ashrafi off all positions

March
07, 2017

ISLAMABAD
- On finding solid evidence of misuse of the office, the Central Executive Body
(Majlis-i-Shoora) and the common body (Majlis-i-Amoomi) of the Pakistan Ulema
Council unanimously dismissed Maulana Tahir Ashrafi as chairman with voice vote
while also cancelled his basic membership of the council.

Flanked
by the central leaders of Pakistan Ulema Council, Central Chairman of PUC
Sahibzada Zahid Mahmood Qasmi said that there were solid evidence of misuse of
office by Maulana Tahir Ashrafi as he had entered into clandestine contracts
with the US State Department and other foreign agencies to secure hefty funds
so the supreme bodies of PUC had also delinked him from the sub-ordinate bodies
of the council Wafaul Masajid Pakistan, Ilm-o-Aman Foundation and
Tahaffuz-i-Madaris-i-Diniya.

Announcing
the decisions of the council’s meeting held on Monday, Sahibzada Zahid Mahmood
Qasmi, who is also member of Islamic Ideology Council, postponed the second
annual meeting ‘The Message of Islam Conference’ scheduled to be held on April
12 in Islamabad while it was decided that an all parties
Tahaffuz-i-Nnamoos-i-Risalt Conference would be shortly called in Islamabad by
the Pakistan Ulema Council.

He
further said that the PUC in its meeting condemned terrorism in all its forms
and manifestation and put its weight behind recently launched operation Raddul
Fasaad to hunt down the militants across the country.

Dispelling
the negativities associated with seminaries, the PUC demanded of bringing to an
end such propaganda as the Ulema and seminaries across the country were
standing with the whole nation against terrorism and would be custodian of the
geographical boundaries of the country along with the armed forces of the
country and would not step back in rendering any sacrifice for it.

The
Chairman of PUC also demanded of the government and the law enforcement
agencies to take notice of the foreign funding through some NGOs allegedly used
against the interests of the country.

To
make operation Raddul Fasaad a success, the Pakistan Ulema Council announced
holding of Ulema conventions across the country to sensitize the general public
about the menace of the militancy and how they could help government in
tracking down the supporters of these perpetrators of violence.

Made
by Reza Aslan, it featured the extreme forms of practice of the Aghoris,
including eating of human corpses.

The
portrayal of Hinduism in a CNN show on Sunday night has drawn strong protests
from many Indian-American groups that found it negative and devoid of adequate
understanding of the religion. The episode on Aghoris in the CNN serial
‘Believer’ made by religious scholar Reza Aslan had graphic images of the
marginal sect’s extreme forms of practicing their faith. “Eating human corpses?
How far would you go to prove your faith? Enter the world of the Aghori,” the
CNN said in a tweet promoting the show.

The
Hindu American Foundation (HAF) and American Hindus Against Defamation (AHAD)
were among the organisations that protested. Democratic Congressman from
California, Ro Khanna, also expressed his disappointment. “Aslan has free
speech! But sad he has made a career of sensationalism over scholarship re:
Christianity & Hinduism,” he said on twitter. Mr. Aslan’s works on
Christianity have been found offensive by many Christian groups in America.

Shock
religion porn: HAF chief

HAF
leader Suhag Shukla termed the show “shock religion porn.” “What does it mean
to live without fear? It means CNN and “experts” like ‪@rezaaslan
don’t engage in shock religion porn,” she said. “It will promote ignorance
about Hindu traditions and promote ridicule of Hindu children in the schools.
For example, a teacher has requested CNN on Facebook if the Hindu-related episode will be available
for teaching ancient Indian history to her sixth grade class! … this will have
wider Hinduphobic societal impact,” Ajay Shah, convener of AHAD said. At a time
when racial prejudices may be increasing and violence targeting Indians is on
the rise, such portrayal of Hinduism is unhelpful, these groups have said.

“Challenging
Islam as a doctrine,” Ali Rizvi told me, “is very different from demonizing
Muslim people.” Rizvi, a self-identified ex-Muslim, is the author of a new book
titled The Atheist Muslim: A Journey from Religion to Reason. One of the book’s
stated aims is to uphold this elementary distinction: “Human beings have rights
and are entitled to respect. Ideas, books, and beliefs don’t, and aren’t.”

The
problem for Rizvi is that the grain of Western political culture is currently
against him. Those in the secular West live in an age when ideas are commonly
regarded as “deeds” with the potential to wound. So, on the left, self-critique
of Islam is often castigated as critique of Muslims. Meanwhile, the newly
elected president of the United States and his inner circle have a tendency to
conflate the ideas of radical Islam with the beliefs of the entire Muslim
population. So, on the right, the very same self-critique of Islam is used to
attack Muslims and legitimize draconian policies against them.

One
possible response to this problem is to back down and stay silent. The Atheist
Muslim is a sustained argument for why silence is not an option. I met up with
Rizvi in his hometown of Toronto recently to discuss his reasoning.

Rizvi
told me he wrote his book to give other ex-Muslims and wavering Muslims a
reference point. He particularly had in mind those atheists, agnostics, and
humanists who live in Muslim-majority countries where the act of renouncing
one’s faith is punishable by death. Rizvi, who was born in 1975 in Pakistan,
where blasphemy carries a potential death sentence, and who lived for more than
a decade in Saudi Arabia prior to becoming a permanent resident in Canada in
1999, knows all too well how dangerous public declarations of disbelief can be.

In
contrast to other prominent ex-Muslim activists, like the Somali-born Ayaan
Hirsi Ali, there is no atrocity, trauma, or turbulence in Rizvi’s narrative. He
grew up in a loving and supportive family. His parents are Shia Muslims, but
they are “secular and relatively liberal” professors, he said. It wasn’t until
his late teens that he began to seriously question his faith. According to
Rizvi, when he told his parents about his atheism, “they were fine with it. We
had arguments, but I wasn’t going to get disowned.” On the day The Atheist
Muslim came out, his mother told him, “Your book will do well, inshallah” (“God
willing”). To me, he joked, “If she’d told me that before, I would have put it
as a blurb on the cover!”

In
Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion, the sociologist Phil Zuckerman makes
a distinction between “transformative apostasy” and “mild apostasy.” The former
refers to “individuals who were deeply, strongly religious who then went on to
reject their religion,” whereas the latter refers to those “who rejected
religion but weren’t all that religious in the first place.” Rizvi belongs to
the latter category. “I was a nominal believer,” he told me.

One
criticism that has been leveled at ex-Muslims is that they are prone to
fundamentalism, trading one form of zealotry for another. In Murder in
Amsterdam, for example, the Dutch writer and academic Ian Buruma
controversially ascribed to Hirsi Ali “hints of zealousness, echoes perhaps of
her earlier enthusiasm for the Muslim Brotherhood, before she was converted to
the ideals of the European Enlightenment.” This type of psychological
observation seems way off in the case of Rizvi, who has a successful career
outside of his public role as a former Muslim: He is a medical communications
professional and a gifted musician who plays and sings in a rock band. For
Rizvi, Islam was never an all-defining identity, and neither is his current
ex-Muslim status.

In
his book, Rizvi describes himself as an “agnostic atheist,” someone who doesn’t
believe in God, but who is open to the possibility that he or she may be wrong.
He also admits that when he fully abandoned his faith he was initially
reluctant to embrace the “atheist” label. “The stereotype of atheists was of
strident, aggressive, arrogant know-it-alls. … This is not how I wanted to
identify. I was humbled by everything I did not know, and everything I could
not know,” he writes. “It was later that I realized atheism is a position of
humility, in contrast to theism, which claims to know the truth, and moreover,
deems it divine and absolute.”

In
Letters to a Young Contrarian, the anti-theist Christopher Hitchens confided
that he found “something suspect even in the humblest believer” on account of
their “arrogant” assumption that they are “an object of real interest to a
Supreme Being” and their claim “to have at least an inkling of what that
Supreme Being desires.” Rizvi, who counts “the Hitch” as an intellectual hero,
is clearly opposed to this line of critique. He writes about Muslims with great
humanity and feeling. He also remains culturally wedded to Islam, celebrating
Eid and enjoying the feasts of Ramadan.

Yet
he is trenchantly critical of canonical religious texts. “Most Muslims are
moderate, but whoever wrote the Quran, that’s not a moderate person,” he said.
Rizvi devotes an entire chapter of his book to exposing what he sees as the
flagrantly illiberal elements in Quranic scripture. Referring to the chapter on
women, Surah An-Nisa, he writes: “It establishes a hierarchy of authority,
where men are deemed to be ‘in charge’ of women. It also asks wives to be
obedient to their husbands, and allows their husbands—in the most controversial
part of the verse—to beat them if they fear disobedience.”

Rizvi
condemns this, but he reserves an almost equal contempt for reformist Muslims
who, as he sees it, try to rationalize away such verses. He puts the scholar of
religion Reza Aslan in this category, taking him to task for his suggestion
that interpretations of scripture have “nothing to do with the text…and
everything to do with the cultural, nationalistic, ethnic, political prejudices
and preconceived notions that the individual brings to the text.” Rizvi is
incredulous at the categorical “nothing” in this claim, and echoes the Islamic
studies scholar Michael Cook’s observation that religious texts provide “modern
adherents with a set of options that do not determine their choices but do
constrain them.” He is skeptical, too, of reformist efforts to reinterpret
scripture so as to bring Islam into line with liberal values. “You can’t
sanitize scripture,” he insisted. “I think fundamentalists have a more honest
approach. … They’re more consistent.”

Rizvi
is also opposed to any efforts to sanitize Islam as “a religion of peace.” He
is particularly critical of any attempt to separate jihadist violence from
Islamic scripture, which he believes is one of its main drivers, though not the
only driver. This puts him at odds not only with Donald Trump’s currently
embattled deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka, who identifies the “martial”
passages in Islamic scripture as the overriding cause of jihadist violence, but
also with Gorka’s liberal critics who deny or minimize any such causal link.

The
main bête noire of The Atheist Muslim is not the Islamic fundamentalists who
would like to see Rizvi’s head on a spike, but the “regressive left,” who, in
Rizvi’s view, are the former’s preeminent apologists, and who seek to silence
voices like his own. For Rizvi, their suggestion that criticism of Islam equals
criticism of Muslims is a form of blackmail, disseminated to shut down any
forthright critical engagement with the religion.

NEW
DELHI: India on Monday renewed its pitch for early adoption of a global
convention by the UN to effectively combat terrorism, terming the menace the
single biggest threat to international peace and security.

In
an obvious reference to Pakistan, defence minister Manohar Parrikar said India
has been a victim of "proxy war" for several decades and that there
was a need for developing an Asian approach to push the global fight against
terror networks.

Calling
for early adoption of India-backed Comprehensive Convention on International
Terrorism (CCIT) by the UN, Parrikar said terror remains the "most
pervasive and serious challenge" to international security and an united
approach to deal with it was very important.

He
was speaking at a conference on combating terrorism at the Institute of Defence
Studies and Analysis.

Parrikar
said there must be action against entities which fund terror groups, propagate
their ideologies and provide safe havens to terror groups and added that India
has been seeking inclusion of these provisions in the CCIT.

Talking
about issues relating to global security, Parrikar also mentioned about
challenges like global uncertainty, revival of populist movements, heightened
nationalism, backlash against globalisation and possible closing of borders by
several countries.

The
Union minister said Asia has been victim of some of the most dreaded terrorist
networks and a strong regional push from Asia will exert more pressure on rest
of the world to adapt a cohesive framework to combat terror.

Without
giving specific details, he said India experienced almost seven per cent of the
total terror attacks globally.

"Terrorism
remains the most pervasive and serious challenge to international security.
Developing a serious and cognitive global response to it is very important but
seemingly very difficult to achieve," he said.

Parrikar
said India will continue to push for shutting down terror camps, imposing ban
on all terror groups, prosecuting all terrorists under special law and making
cross-border terror an extraditable offence under the CCIT.

"Terrorism
is undoubtedly the single biggest threat to international peace and security.
While the threat is transnational, response does not appear to be coordinated
even though there is a broad consensus on what constitutes an act of
terror," he said.

He
said the arch of terrorism was expanding in Asia and there was a need for a
regional approach to defeat terror.

Quoting
a global report, he said record number of countries have been experiencing a
high level of terrorism which surged by 6 per cent in 2016 over the preceding
year.

Four
groups — ISIS, Boko Haram, Taliban and al-Qaida — were responsible for 74 per
cent of all forms of terrorism, he added.

Referring
to a UN report, he said ISIS affiliated groups carried out attacks in 29
countries in 2016 which is almost double in comparison to 2014.

He
said some 60 million people have been impacted by conflict and violence.

Parrikar
also emphasised on the need to combat "complicated webs of terror
financing", noting that a holistic approach is needed to combat terror
effectively.

He
said it is also important to counter the misuse of the internet through social
media by terrorist entities.

Made
by Reza Aslan, it featured the extreme forms of practice of the Aghoris,
including eating of human corpses.

The
portrayal of Hinduism in a CNN show on Sunday night has drawn strong protests
from many Indian-American groups that found it negative and devoid of adequate
understanding of the religion. The episode on Aghoris in the CNN serial
‘Believer’ made by religious scholar Reza Aslan had graphic images of the
marginal sect’s extreme forms of practicing their faith. “Eating human corpses?
How far would you go to prove your faith? Enter the world of the Aghori,” the
CNN said in a tweet promoting the show.

The
Hindu American Foundation (HAF) and American Hindus Against Defamation (AHAD)
were among the organisations that protested. Democratic Congressman from
California, Ro Khanna, also expressed his disappointment. “Aslan has free
speech! But sad he has made a career of sensationalism over scholarship re:
Christianity & Hinduism,” he said on twitter. Mr. Aslan’s works on
Christianity have been found offensive by many Christian groups in America.

Shock
religion porn: HAF chief

HAF
leader Suhag Shukla termed the show “shock religion porn.” “What does it mean
to live without fear? It means CNN and “experts” like ‪@rezaaslan
don’t engage in shock religion porn,” she said. “It will promote ignorance
about Hindu traditions and promote ridicule of Hindu children in the schools.
For example, a teacher
has requested CNN on Facebook if the Hindu-related episode will be available
for teaching ancient Indian history to her sixth grade class! … this will have
wider Hinduphobic societal impact,” Ajay Shah, convener of AHAD said. At a time
when racial prejudices may be increasing and violence targeting Indians is on
the rise, such portrayal of Hinduism is unhelpful, these groups have said.

HAF
and AHAD also argued that caste system was not a scripturally sanctioned part
of Hinduism and accused Mr. Aslan of mirepresenting the community. The episode
showed caste as part of the Hindu belief system and the Aghori sect as a
rebellion against the notion of the purity-pollution binary that forms the
basis of caste system. HAF representative Mat McDermott had met with Mr. Aslan
and had a preview of the episode. An HAF statement said the show perpetrates
stereotypes about Hinduism and Hindus. “There is the stereotyped image of a
naked Aghori sadhu, drinking alcohol from a human skull, literally eating what
is ostensibly human flesh, taking Reza on as his disciple, threatening to
behead him if he talks any more, and then throwing his own freshly excreted
urine at him, all on camera for viewers to see,” said an HAF statement.

'Will
he make a film on Islam?'

Both
organisations also wondered whether Mr. Aslan would make a similar film on
Islam, the religion that he practices. The filmmaker, an Iranian American, told
Mr. McDermott that he had to abandon the plan to shoot an episode on the Ashura
festival in Pakistan as no insurer was willing to cover the crew. “If and when
there’s a second series of Believer, Aslan assured that Islam would definitely
be included,” the HAF statement said.

“Challenging
Islam as a doctrine,” Ali Rizvi told me, “is very different from demonizing
Muslim people.” Rizvi, a self-identified ex-Muslim, is the author of a new book
titled The Atheist Muslim: A Journey from Religion to Reason. One of the book’s
stated aims is to uphold this elementary distinction: “Human beings have rights
and are entitled to respect. Ideas, books, and beliefs don’t, and aren’t.”

The
problem for Rizvi is that the grain of Western political culture is currently
against him. Those in the secular West live in an age when ideas are commonly
regarded as “deeds” with the potential to wound. So, on the left, self-critique
of Islam is often castigated as critique of Muslims. Meanwhile, the newly
elected president of the United States and his inner circle have a tendency to
conflate the ideas of radical Islam with the beliefs of the entire Muslim
population. So, on the right, the very same self-critique of Islam is used to
attack Muslims and legitimize draconian policies against them.

One
possible response to this problem is to back down and stay silent. The Atheist
Muslim is a sustained argument for why silence is not an option. I met up with
Rizvi in his hometown of Toronto recently to discuss his reasoning.

Rizvi
told me he wrote his book to give other ex-Muslims and wavering Muslims a
reference point. He particularly had in mind those atheists, agnostics, and
humanists who live in Muslim-majority countries where the act of renouncing
one’s faith is punishable by death. Rizvi, who was born in 1975 in Pakistan,
where blasphemy carries a potential death sentence, and who lived for more than
a decade in Saudi Arabia prior to becoming a permanent resident in Canada in
1999, knows all too well how dangerous public declarations of disbelief can be.

In
contrast to other prominent ex-Muslim activists, like the Somali-born Ayaan
Hirsi Ali, there is no atrocity, trauma, or turbulence in Rizvi’s narrative. He
grew up in a loving and supportive family. His parents are Shia Muslims, but
they are “secular and relatively liberal” professors, he said. It wasn’t until
his late teens that he began to seriously question his faith. According to
Rizvi, when he told his parents about his atheism, “they were fine with it. We
had arguments, but I wasn’t going to get disowned.” On the day The Atheist
Muslim came out, his mother told him, “Your book will do well, inshallah” (“God
willing”). To me, he joked, “If she’d told me that before, I would have put it
as a blurb on the cover!”

In
Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion, the sociologist Phil Zuckerman makes
a distinction between “transformative apostasy” and “mild apostasy.” The former
refers to “individuals who were deeply, strongly religious who then went on to
reject their religion,” whereas the latter refers to those “who rejected
religion but weren’t all that religious in the first place.” Rizvi belongs to
the latter category. “I was a nominal believer,” he told me.

PESHAWAR:
The TransAction Alliance and other civil society organisations have expressed
grave concerns over arrest of 35 transgender persons in Saudi Arabia and urged
the Saudi government to release the details so that their families could take necessary
steps for their release.

Addressing
a news conference at Peshawar Press Club on Monday, TransAction Alliance
provincial president Farzana Jan shared details about arrest of the transgender
persons and death of two of them in police custody in Saudi Arabia.

“We
want to know the details, under what charges the people have been arrested,
what is their medical condition and if they are alive,” she said and added that
she had received information about death of two transgender persons in police
custody but no one knew where their bodies were.

Farzana
said that her organisation would receive the bodies of the two transgender
persons if they were not buried in Saudi Arabia. She demanded of the Saudi
government to release the detained persons on humanitarian grounds.

TransAction
Alliance chief says two of arrested persons died in custody of Saudi police

Farzana
said that a group of transgender persons gathered on February 26 in Riyadh for
a meeting when personnel Azizia police station picked them. They were packed
into sacks and thrashed with sticks by police as a result two of them, Amina
from Swat and Menno from Peshawar, died, she added.

Flanked
by rights activist Qamar Naseem, Pakhtunkhwa Civil Society Network coordination
Taimur Kamal, she that she was ready to share the details about the transgender
community in Saudi Arabia only to National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR)
Pakistan and Senator Farhatullah Babar, member of Senate committee on
amalgamated persons, because the information could put lives of relevant
persons at risk in Saudi Arabia.

Farzana
said that the arrested persons should be presented to a court of law if they
were involved in any kind of crime.

ISLAMABAD:
Express­ing grief over the killing of five army personnel in the cross-border
terrorist attack in Mohmand Agency, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday said
that sacrifices rendered by the country’s soldiers while defending the
motherland were the “real lifeline of nation”.

“The
soldiers who sacrificed their life are our real heroes and the nation promises
to honour them by standing firm against terrorists’ nefarious designs that
attack our way of life,” the prime minister said in a statement.

He
said Pakistan would become stronger “because our men in uniform are vigilant at
our borders and in urban centres”.

“Terrorists
are mistaken if they think they can weaken the resolve of our nation,” he
added.

Full
report at:

https://www.dawn.com/news/1318930

--------

Asif
lashes out at Kabul over failure to combat terrorists

Mar
6, 2017

ISLAMABAD:
Defending the government’s decision to close the country’s border with
Afghanistan, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Monday lashed out at the
authorities in Kabul over their failure to take action against the terrorists
using Afghan soil against Pakistan.

Delivering
a fiery speech in the National Assembly on the opening day of its spring
session, the minister declared that closing the border was Pakistan’s sovereign
right and the government would take every step necessary to defend the
“country’s interests”.

The
minister took the floor when some opposition members, while speaking on matters
of public importance, criticised the government for its decision to close the
border with Afghanistan and termed it an act of victimisation against Pakhtuns.

Full
report at:

https://www.dawn.com/news/1318936

--------

PUC
strips Maulana Ashrafi off all positions

March
07, 2017

ISLAMABAD
- On finding solid evidence of misuse of the office, the Central Executive Body
(Majlis-i-Shoora) and the common body (Majlis-i-Amoomi) of the Pakistan Ulema
Council unanimously dismissed Maulana Tahir Ashrafi as chairman with voice vote
while also cancelled his basic membership of the council.

Flanked
by the central leaders of Pakistan Ulema Council, Central Chairman of PUC
Sahibzada Zahid Mahmood Qasmi said that there were solid evidence of misuse of
office by Maulana Tahir Ashrafi as he had entered into clandestine contracts
with the US State Department and other foreign agencies to secure hefty funds
so the supreme bodies of PUC had also delinked him from the sub-ordinate bodies
of the council Wafaul Masajid Pakistan, Ilm-o-Aman Foundation and
Tahaffuz-i-Madaris-i-Diniya.

Announcing
the decisions of the council’s meeting held on Monday, Sahibzada Zahid Mahmood
Qasmi, who is also member of Islamic Ideology Council, postponed the second
annual meeting ‘The Message of Islam Conference’ scheduled to be held on April
12 in Islamabad while it was decided that an all parties
Tahaffuz-i-Nnamoos-i-Risalt Conference would be shortly called in Islamabad by
the Pakistan Ulema Council.

He
further said that the PUC in its meeting condemned terrorism in all its forms
and manifestation and put its weight behind recently launched operation Raddul
Fasaad to hunt down the militants across the country.

Dispelling
the negativities associated with seminaries, the PUC demanded of bringing to an
end such propaganda as the Ulema and seminaries across the country were
standing with the whole nation against terrorism and would be custodian of the
geographical boundaries of the country along with the armed forces of the
country and would not step back in rendering any sacrifice for it.

The
Chairman of PUC also demanded of the government and the law enforcement
agencies to take notice of the foreign funding through some NGOs allegedly used
against the interests of the country.

To
make operation Raddul Fasaad a success, the Pakistan Ulema Council announced
holding of Ulema conventions across the country to sensitize the general public
about the menace of the militancy and how they could help government in
tracking down the supporters of these perpetrators of violence.

Responding
to a question, the chairman PUC said that they were in favour of military
courts for dealing with the terrorism related cases but they were against
bringing parallel laws which according to them would create problems in the
long run.

Security
sources said at least five soldiers of the Pakistan Army and more than 10
terrorists were killed in the fight after Afghanistan-based terrorists stormed
three check-posts in Mohmand Agency late Sunday night.

The
attack came in the Gora Pari area, which is 75 kilometres from tehsil Biazai
headquarters - Ghalanai.

The
sources said the terrorists carrying small arms targeted the border posts
around 4:30am. As many as five soldiers and over 10 terrorists were killed in
the ensuing fight.

Pakistan
Army in a statement said the security forces effectively responded and repulsed
the terrorist attack.

Separately,
one soldier was killed in Khyber Agency as a result of firing by terrorists
from the Afghan territory.

The
foreign ministry said the country has launched a strong protest with the Afghan
government.

“In
this regard, Afghan Deputy Head of Mission (Syed Abdul Nasir Yousafi) was
called to the Foreign Office today (March 6) for conveying Pakistan’s grave
concern over the (Mohmand) incident,” a statement issued by the foreign
ministry read.

“The
Afghan government was urged to thoroughly investigate the incident and take
firm action against the terrorists operating from its soil to prevent
recurrence of such incidents. It was further emphasised that cooperation from
Afghan side for effective border management was important for preventing
cross-border movement of terrorists and militants,” said.

Chief
of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Monday appreciated response by
Pakistani troops to the terrorists attack on the check posts in Mohmand.

According
to ISPR, the Army Chief emphasised need for ‘required physical presence on
Afghan side of the border for matching and effective border security.’ He said
terrorists are common threat and must be denied freedom of movement or action
along the border.

Expressing
grief on loss of precious lives, General Bajwa hailed the sacrifices made by
brave sons of soil.

Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif has expressed deep grief over the martyrdom of army
personnel in the cross boarder terrorist attack.

In
his message, he said that the sacrifices given by our brave soldiers while
defending the motherland are the real life line of our nation.

Nawaz
Sharif said that Pakistan will become more successful and stronger because our
men in uniform are vigilant on our borders and in our Urban centers .

He
said that terrorists are badly mistaken if they think they can weaken the
resolve of our nation.

Operation
Radd-ul Fasaad is against every terrorist working from within the country or operating
from a foreign territory .

The
enemies of Pakistan will be eliminated along with the cancerous Ideology
promoting it.

Those
soldiers who sacrificed their life are our real heroes and the nation promises
to honor them by standing firm against terrorists nefarious designs to hit at
our way of life.

Despite
the fact that Pakistan has been the victim of terrorist attacks, Afghanistan
has been accusing Pakistan of providing safe havens to the militants. Pakistan
has always denied the allegations citing its lengthy war against the terrorists
in the tribal belt.

Kabul
gets encouragement from New Delhi as India tries to discredit Pakistan. In the
last Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar, India and Afghanistan also hurled
accusations against Pakistan.

Meanwhile,
Pakistan has tightened security arrangements along the Afghan border and with
Iran to back the operation Raddul Fassad.

Officials
said that additional check posts will be established at the coastal highway and
roads along the borders with Afghanistan and Iran. These posts will be manned
by the army, Frontier Constabulary, Customs, Federal Investigation Agency,
Levies, police and intelligence agencies’ officials.

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
governor and chief minister, Corps Commander Peshawar Lt-Gen Nazir Ahmed Butt
and other senior civil and military officers and soldiers attended the funeral.
The bodies of the martyred soldiers were to be taken to their native areas for
burial with full military honour.

From
page 1

He
said terrorists are common threat and must be denied freedom of movement or
action along the border.

Expressing
grief on loss of precious lives, General Bajwa hailed the sacrifices made by
brave sons of soil.

Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif has expressed deep grief over the martyrdom of army
personnel in the cross boarder terrorist attack.

In
his message, he said that the sacrifices given by our brave soldiers while
defending the motherland are the real life line of our nation.

Nawaz
Sharif said that Pakistan will become more successful and stronger because our
men in uniform are vigilant on our borders and in our Urban centers . He said
that terrorists are badly mistaken if they think they can weaken the resolve of
our nation.

Operation
Radd-ul Fasaad is against every terrorist working from within the country or
operating from a foreign territory .

The
enemies of Pakistan will be eliminated along with the cancerous Ideology
promoting it.

Those
soldiers who sacrificed their life are our real heroes and the nation promises
to honor them by standing firm against terrorists nefarious designs to hit at
our way of life.

Despite
the fact that Pakistan has been the victim of terrorist attacks, Afghanistan
has been accusing Pakistan of providing safe havens to the militants. Pakistan
has always denied the allegations citing its lengthy war against the terrorists
in the tribal belt.

Kabul
gets encouragement from New Delhi as India tries to discredit Pakistan. In the
last Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar, India and Afghanistan also hurled
accusations against Pakistan.

Worker’s
Party President Rashed Khan Menon claimed on Monday that the BNP-Jamaat
alliance had created terrorist outfit New JMB, a new faction of banned group
JMB affiliated with Islamic State, for carrying out secret assassinations
across Bangladesh.

“Neo
JMB [also known as New JMB] proved its existence through the Holey Artisan
Bakery attack at Gulshan in Dhaka,” he said while taking part in the general
discussion on thanksgiving motion of President Abdul Hamid’s address to the
Jatiya Sangsad on January 22.

The
minister claimed that the BNP-Jamaat nexus had patronised anti-liberation
forces, JMB founder Shayakh Abdur Rahman and second-in-command Bangla Bhai,
which paved the way for the rise of militancy in the country.

“They
created Neo JMB to carry out militant attacks and secret killings,” he said.

The
Worker’s Party president stressed the need for building a mass awareness
campaign against militancy and terrorism under the leadership of Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina.

“The
people of Bangladesh are quite aware of the anarchy unleashed by the
BNP-Jamaat,” he added, referring to arson attacks carried out by the faction
before and after the January 2014 general elections.

Menon
said that the next general elections would be held in 2019 as per the
constitution and under the present government, adding that there was no point
to including BNP in the election-time government as “the party does not
acknowledge the legitimacy of the Election Commission.”

Afghanistan’s
national security adviser on Monday said that associating terrorism with Islam
was inappropriate given the suffering Muslims have endured at the hands of
terrorists and the sacrifices they have made to defeat such violence.

The
South Asian region, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, had the “highest
concentration of organised terrorists anywhere in the world,” said Hanif Atmar
at the Asian Security Conference, being held this year in New Delhi.

He
noted that 20 out of 98 groups designated by the US as terrorist organisations
were operating in the region.

Afghanistan
has lost 10,500 people to terrorism over the last 14 months, with an average of
28 people dying each day, he said.

“It
is inappropriate to associate terrorism with Islam, because it fails to
understand, to appreciate, the sacrifices that the Muslims are making in order
to defeat terrorism, and the suffering that the Muslims have had at the hands
of the terrorists,” he told participants.

India’s
defence minister Manohar Parrikar said a global response to countering
terrorism must come from Asia, since “Asians being subjected to the terrorist
violence carried out by four out of five deadliest terror outfits in the
world.”

Radical
Islamist platform Hefazat-e-Islam issued a press release on Monday stating the arrest
warrant issued against their leaders was to deflect the idol issue on the
Supreme Court premises.

The
Shariah law-pursuing group has been actively campaigning to remove the
sculpture representing justice, claiming it is a Greek idol. They have also
used children in their public protest, a political act which is forbidden in
the Children’s Act 2013.

Hefazat
Nayeb-e-Ameer Shamshul Alam among many signed the brief, saying there is no
place for idols in a Muslim-majority country and that it was strategically
placed on the court grounds to undermine Islam.

Hefazat
leaders claimed the warrant was issued by anti-Islamic atheists to silence
Islamic scholars leading the fight against the anti-Islamic conspiracy.

They
further threatened to launch countrywide unrest if the warrant was not
withdrawn swiftly.

Earlier
on Sunday, a Dhaka court issued an arrest warrant against 25 people including
Hefazat leaders, in a four-year-old case for instigating an attack on the
Gonojagoron Moncho on February 22, 2013.

A
special tribunal issued the arrest warrant based on the charge sheet filed by
Shahbagh police accusing 29 people of bombing.

An
explosion took place in Kabul city earlier this morning with preliminary
reports suggesting one person was killed in the incident.

The
explosion took place in the vicinity of the 6th police district of the city
triggered by a magnetic bomb.

Eyewitnesses
in the area said the magnetic bomb was planted in a civilian vehicle and went
off around 7 am today in the vicinity of Dar-ul-Aman road and the Charqala
road.

However,
a security official in the 6th police district said the bomb was planted in a
government vehicle and one was person killed in the incident.

No
group has so far claimed responsibility behind the incident.

This
comes as a coordinated attack took place in the vicinity of 6th police district
last week, leaving scores of people dead or wounded.

The
incident near the 6th police district compound took place after a suicide
bomber detonated a car bomb with the remaining militants starting clash with
the security forces.

Full
report at:

The
Taliban group claimed responsibility behind the attacks last week.

http://www.khaama.com/explosion-in-kabul-leaves-one-person-dead-02345

--------

2
heroin factories destroyed by Afghan forces in Nangarhar

Mar
06 2017

The
Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) personnel discovered an
destroyed two heroin factories in the eastern Nangarhar province of
Afghanistan.

According
to the local government officials, the two factories were located in Kambo area
of Khogyani district which were discovered by the Special Forces of the
Ministry of Interior.

The
officials further added that the operation to destroy the two factories was
launched around 8 pm local time and concluded in the early hours of Monday
morning.

The
provincial government media office in a statement said this is not the first time
the Afghan forces have discovered and destroyed major heroin factories in this
province but several factories were destroyed during the similar operations in
the past.

This
comes as there has been a sharp rise in opium cultivation, production and smuggling
across the country during the recent months.

According
to the last survey report, there has been a 43 per cent rise in opium
cultivation in Afghanistan.

The
survey jointly conducted by the Afghan authorities and United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime, around 201,000 acres of land were cultivated with opium in
2016.

The
report further added that estimates show a total of 4,800 metric tons of opium
will be produced in 2016.

Malaysia
has long been recognised as a world leader in promoting and brokering peace
through various efforts, spanning from Africa to the Middle East, southern
Thailand and the southern Philippines.

Thus,
it was a great honour and a feather in the cap when Saudi Arabia announced the
setting up of the King Salman Centre for International Peace at the Islamic
Science University Malaysia (USIM) in Nilai, Negri Sembilan, to promote world
peace and stability.

The
centre, which was set up in conjunction with Saudi Arabia ruler King Salman
Abdulaziz al-Saud’s state visit to Malaysia last week, will be launched in
three months and is testimony to the close and cordial relations between the
two countries.

It
will be established in collaboration with the Saudi Arabian Defence Ministry’s
Intellectual Warfare Centre, Malaysian Defence Ministry’s Security and Defence
Centre, USIM and the Muslim World League.

Prime
Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said the two governments had agreed to
establish the centre in Malaysia.

It
will focus on combating extreme narratives as well as the need to intensify
joint efforts to combat terrorism in all forms and manifestations, whatever the
origin.

USIM
Vice-Chancellor Professor Datuk Dr Musa Ahmad said the recognition was a big
honour for the university, country and international Muslim community.

The
setting up of the centre is pertinent and timely because of numerous conflicts
and wars ravaging Muslim nations, such as in Syria and Palestine.

It
is the responsibility of all Muslim stakeholders to bring peace and stability
back to Muslim nations, as well as elevating the status of the faith. This
responsibility can be spearheaded by Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.

Both
countries have agreed on the need to intensify and concert their efforts to
confront extremism, reject sectarianism and move the Islamic world towards a
better future.

This
is in line with objectives of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC),
that is to achieve international peace and security.

The
vital part is the recognition by Saudi Arabia and the Muslim world that
Malaysia can lead efforts to counter the threat of extremism and play a
significant role in the global arena.

USIM
will do well in managing the centre under the leadership of Defence Minister
Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, as well as the Muslim World League.

This
is because USIM has the expertise to assist the government in disseminating the
true teachings of Islam to both Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

At
the same time, USIM can explain in detail the concept of wasatiyyah, or Islamic
moderation, as propagated by both Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.

USIM
will be able to convey the government’s aspirations as it has abundant Islamic
academia at its disposal. Malaysia will be able to disseminate well the message
that violence should not be linked with any race, colour or religious
background.

It
is envisioned that by 2050, the world will have a global population of nine
billion people, of which, three billion are Muslims.

It
is believed that the resurgence of Islam will not be in the Middle East, but in
Asia, of which Malaysia will be at the centre of that growth.

Malaysia
is renowned as the biggest issuer of Islamic bonds, a world-class manager of
haj pilgrimage and also a major player in Islamic banking.

At
a dialogue with students in USIM last month on “Transformasi Nasional 2050:
From an Islamic Point of View”, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid
Hamidi said on the international front, Malaysia would continue to be well
regarded among OIC countries because, in the past, it had played a dominant
role in resolving disputes.

“There
is no place for religious extremists in the Islamic world because studies have
shown that 87.5 per cent of extremists from other countries have no basic
Islamic background, which is proof that extremism does not originate solely
from the Muslim world,” said Zahid.

Zaidi
Isham Ismail, a former assistant news editor at the Business Times, is NST’s
Negri Sembilan bureau chief.

KUALA
LUMPUR, March 6 — Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir welcomed today a Muslim lawyers
group’s defence of atheists when it protested against making the Rukunegara a
preamble to the Federal Constitution.

Malay
rights group Perkasa and a group of 31 lawyers and academics at a roundtable
talk yesterday strongly opposed the proposal by the group calling themselves
“Rukunegara Muqaddimah Perlembagaan” (RMP), which Marina is a part of.

During
the discussion, Zainul lamented that the rights of atheists to not believe in
the existence of God would be affected if the Rukunegara was made a preamble of
the Federal Constitution, as “belief in God” was one of the five tenets of the
National Principles.

Marina
however said that the Rukunegara by itself cannot alter the provisions in the
Federal Constitution.

"Well
I think there is misunderstanding, because the Rukunegara upholds the Federal
Constitution. So whatever is in the Constitution, remains unchanged. The
preamble by itself, cannot change the Constitution. I don't know what they are
talking about.

"But
again, I would like to congratulate Datuk Zainul Rijal for considering those
who do not believe in God," she told Malay Mail Online when contacted.

RMP
head Dr. Chandra Muzaffar also echoed Marina's sentiment, adding that the group
proposed the suggestion to enable the Rukunegara to act as a moral compass and
not to undermine the special privilege of the Malays and Islam, as alleged by
Muslim academics and lawyers during the Sunday discussion.

"No
way this will undermine the special position of Malays and those from Sabah and
Sarawak. Why? Because Article 153 and
others related to the special position of the Malays and those from Sabah and
Sarawak are entrenched in the Constitution and no one can change it.

"Not
the Parliament or the electorates can change that. These are protected by the
Conference of Rulers. It has iron-clad protection," Chandra said, adding
that allegations that the Rukunegara would alter the Federal Constitution were
without basis, aimed to create a climate of fear.

Article
153 of the Federal Constitution grants the Yang di-Pertuan Agong responsibility
for safeguarding the special position of the Malays and natives of Sabah and
Sarawak, as well as the legitimate interests of other communities.

It
also detailed ways to do this, such as establishing quotas for entry into the
civil service, public scholarships and public education.

As
for the position of Islam, Chandra said that Article 3 of the Federal
Constitution already safeguards Islam's position and the Rukunegara, as per one
of its tenets "keluhuran perlembagaan” (nobleness of the Constitution)
only aims to uphold that.

"Since
the Rukunegara itself upholds the Constitution, why should one worry about the
position of Islam?" he questioned.

Two
very worrying trends in Malaysia may have come together: the rise of religious
intolerance and the use of murder as a political weapon.

The
well-organized kidnap and disappearance of a Chinese Christian pastor, Raymond
Koh Keng Joo on Feb. 13 in the middle of Petaling Jaya, a suburb of Kuala
Lumpur, was clearly driven by his promotion of Christianity. His disappearance
and the lack of any news or ransom demand suggest he has likely been killed and
his body disposed of. If so, whether his corpse was blown up in the manner of
Altantuya Shaaribu, the pregnant Mongolian model and translator murdered by
then-Defense Minister Najib Razak’s security personnel, or in a drum of
concrete like 1MDB investigator from the Attorney General’s department, Kevin
Anthomy Morais, or otherwise, remains to be seen.

What
is clear is that the broad daylight morning kidnap operation was brazen and
highly organized. Witnesses and a video posted on-line reported that three
large SUVs, two following cars and two motorcycles were involved, with masked
men holding up traffic, blocking Koh’s car, seizing him and bundling him into
one of the vehicles. Witnesses reported that there were at least five
abductors, who were driving black 4x4s, and that one of them calmly filmed the
incident. The operation of less than a minute took place just 100 metres from a
police complex.

Despite
the evidence of witnesses and the video, the police have made no progress
either in identifying the kidnappers or tracing the victim. Koh’s family has
offered a RM100,000 (US$22,500) reward for his safe return but there has been
no response. It is not clear how much effort an increasingly politicized police
force has invested in finding Koh and his kidnappers.

Koh
was viewed by some Christian groups as being too high-profile for his own good
given the rise in Muslim fanaticism in what is supposed to be multi-ethnic,
multi-religious nation. In 2011 Koh was accused by the Selangor Religious
Affairs Department of trying to convert Malays to Christianity. However, the
issue was dropped due lack of evidence.

The
kidnap and possible murder coincides with the introduction into parliament by
the head of Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS) leader Abdul Hadi Awang of a
long-delayed bill to increase the powers of sharia courts which in turn could
lead to the introduction of hudud, seventh-century Islamic corporal punishments
including amputating limbs of thieves and stoning to death of adulterers, more
likely, in this society, adulteresses while their lovers walk free.

Although
the bill is unlikely to become law, the massive 1Malaysia Development Bhd.
scandal, in which as much as US$1 billion of public funds is suspected to have
flowed into Prime Minister Najib Razak’s
bank account, and other scandals besetting the prime minister are making
him ever more susceptible to trading religious intolerance for support at the
polls, a scenario that the rural-based PAS is only too happy to take advantage
of.

Although
an absurdly skewed electoral system makes a nonsense of democracy in Malaysia,
Najib has become increasingly ruthless in his treatment of critics and is open
to all methods of keeping himself in office ranging from asking Chinese state
companies to help to bail out 1MDB and Muslim extremists who claim they
represent Malay interests but in practice like to impose medieval Arab forms
and dress on Malays.

The
fate of Koh is evidently meant as a warning to non-Muslims. In the context of
Peninsular Malaysia, where Malays are deemed to be children incapable of making
their own decisions about religion, it is also a racist message to the
non-Malay 30 percent of the population: leave us to our intolerance or we will
punish you.

Judges
presiding over the blasphemy trial of Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja
Purnama refused to hear testimony on Tuesday from his Muslim godbrother, Analta
Amir, as the latter had attended a previous hearing.

Presiding
judge Dwiarso Budi Santiarto made the decision after complaints from prosecutors,
who said Analta had attended one of Ahok’s previous hearings though it was
prohibited for a witness to do so.

Analta
admitted that he had once attended an earlier hearing, during which the court
heard testimony from witnesses presented by prosecutors.

“As
the witness has heard testimonies of other witnesses, the judges believe this
witness cannot be questioned,” Dwiarso said during a hearing held by the North
Jakarta District Court at the Agriculture Ministry in Ragunan, South Jakarta.

He
added that the court’s judges had reminded anyone expected to be presented as a
witness in the trial to leave the courtroom before each hearing started.

Dwiarso
said Ahok’s lawyers should have reminded Analta to leave the courtroom.

He
said witnesses could attend some court hearings but not those that featured
witness testimony. He added that Ahok’s lawyers were allowed to present another
witness to replace Analta.

In
what appears to be a new violation of laws and international treaties, Houthi
militias refused to allow the UN sanctions team from entering the Yemeni
capital of Sanaa and all areas under its control.

During
a meeting with Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed bin Daghr in Aden, UN sanctions team
coordinator Ahmed Himmich said in a statement that the delegation seeks to take
a stand on the violations that directly affect civilians and brief the UN.

Meanwhile,
14 civilians were killed and injured in a raid carried out by Houthi militias
and militias allied to ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh, which targeted
civilian neighborhoods in the center of Taiz City.

More
than 2,000 fighters sent from Iran have been killed in Iraq and Syria, the head
of Iran’s veterans’ affairs office said Tuesday.

“Some
2,100 martyrs have been martyred so far in Iraq or other places defending the
holy mausoleums,” Mohammad Ali Shahidi told the state-run IRNA news agency.

Shahidi,
who is head of Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs, was speaking
at a conference on martyrdom culture in Tehran. The figure was more than double
the number he gave in November, which referred only to Syria.

Iran
is, with Russia, the main military backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
and also organizes militias fighting ISIS. Shahidi did not provide details on
the nationalities of those killed.

US
President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Monday
had a long phone conversation about strategic threats posed by Iran, the
premier’s office said.

“The
two leaders spoke at length about the dangers arising from the nuclear deal
with Iran and Iranian aggression in the (Middle East) region and the need to
work together to deal with those dangers,” it said in a statement.

The
landmark nuclear deal between Iran and world powers was reached in July 2015
and went into effect in January last year.

It
saw Iran agree to dismantle part of its nuclear program, surrender enriched
fuel and submit to international inspections in exchange for the partial
lifting of sanctions.

But
critics of the agreement, particularly Netanyahu, argue that when some of the
clauses of the deal expire in 10 and 15 years, it will leave Tehran on the
threshold of building a bomb.

Trump
too is a vociferous opponent of the treaty.

The
US president told Netanyahu the nuclear agreement was “one of the worst deals”
he had ever seen when the two met at the White House last month.

Trump
said his administration had already imposed new sanctions on Iran, and he would
do more to prevent Iran from ever developing a nuclear weapon.

Washington
last month imposed new sanctions on individuals and companies supporting Iran’s
ballistic missile program and on its elite Revolutionary Guards.

The
US Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) warned merchant ships from the dangers of
mines that were set by Houthis and militias allied to former Yemeni President
Ali Abdullah Saleh in Bab al-Mandeb near the Mokha port entrance.

A
report issued by the ONI stated that the attacks on ships in the strait,
especially commercial ones, will trigger the involvement of other parties,
pointing out that the US Navy will deploy all the needed efforts to protect the
freedom of ships.

Bab
el-Mandeb, which is 25 kilometers wide, is a very important waterway for global
navigation, through which merchant ships in the Gulf of Aden sail to the Red
Sea, and then to the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea.

It
is one of the most crowded waterways for oil transportation in the Middle East
and other regions. More than 60 commercial ships cross the strait of Bab
al-Mandeb with more than 3.3 million oil barrels per day.

The
US warning noted that the closure of this waterway would lead to substantial
increases in total energy costs and global oil prices.

Iran's
Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani has refuted the recent US
allegations about human rights violations in the Islamic Republic, saying
Tehran will not leave such claims “unanswered.”

Addressing
a meeting of senior Iranian judicial officials on Monday, Amoli Larijani added
that US reports against the human rights situation in Iran are based on false
reports provided by members of the anti-Iran terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq
Organization (MKO).

“The
US claims in this regard have no value in the eyes of the Islamic Republic of
Iran and the US government must know that the repetition of such threadbare
methods by using the MKO as a tool to attack the Islamic Republic will not
remain unanswered,” he said.

He
dismissed as routine the US Department of State’s move to level such
allegations against Iran in its 2016 human rights report, which was released on
March 3.

“The
Americans, who are directly or indirectly involved in various anti-human rights
crimes in Vietnam, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and other parts of the
world, are not entitled to make rights claims against Iran,” Amoli Larijani
said.

He
called on the Iranian government to give a firm response to such claims.

The
judiciary chief’s comments came after Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram
Qassemi said on Saturday that the United States is in no position to make any
judgment about other countries’ human rights situation.

“The
US government, due to its very bad and dark record of human rights, whether
inside the country or at international level, is not in a position to comment
on the human rights situation in other countries,” Qassemi said.

The
Israeli parliament has passed legislation barring the entry of supporters of
the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

"The
Knesset (parliament) passed on its second and third readings of the entry into
Israel bill," read a statement released on Monday.

It
noted that visas and permanent residency of any manner will not be granted to
foreigners if they or their organization which they are active in have issued
public calls for the BDS or pledged to take part in it.

"In
recent years calls to boycott Israel have been growing… It seems this is a new
front in the war against Israel,” added the statement.

Critics
of the bill say that its wording leaves it open to target Palestinians
temporarily residing in the occupied territories.

The
BDS movement was initiated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian organizations that
were pushing for “various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its
obligations under international law.”

Thousands
of volunteers worldwide have joined the BDS to help promote the Palestinian
cause, including scores of Palestinian and international trade unions, NGOs,
initiatives, scores of academic societies, business societies, trade unions,
and cultural figures.

It
has also gained support in countries such as the US, Canada, Norway, Denmark,
Romania, South Africa, Australia, and Britain.

Turkish
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim says his country will not plan an attack on the
Kurdish-held city of Manbij without the coordination of US and Russia.

"(Without
such coordination) there wouldn't be much of a result and things could get more
complicated," said Yildirim during a televised interview on Monday.

Last
week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that when Turkey’s
forces complete their operations in al-Bab, they will move towards Manbij,
which is held by US-backed Kurdish forces. “Now it is time for Manbij, which
belongs to the Arabs, not the PYD or YPG,” he said.

Kurdish
forces, mainly the Democratic Union Party, also known as the PYD, and its
military wing the YPG, liberated the northern Syrian city of Manbij from Daesh
last year. They are now currently in control of nearly all of Syria’s entire
northern border with Turkey.

After
the announcement, Turkish forces seized two Kurdish-held villages located to
the east of al-Bab following heavy clashes with the so-called Syrian Democratic
Forces (SDF). The SDF is a coalition of Arab fighters and forces from the
Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), who are currently in control of nearly
all of Syria’s entire northern border with Turkey.

In
August 2016, Turkey began a major military intervention in Syria, dubbed
"Euphrates Shield," sending tanks and warplanes across the border.
Ankara claimed that its military campaign was aimed at pushing Daesh from
Turkey's border with Syria and stopping the advance of Kurdish forces, but
Damascus denounced the operation as a breach of its sovereignty.

US
bolstering presence in Manbij

Meanwhile,
the Pentagon has announced that it has sent additional US soldiers into
northern Syria to deter rival forces in the region from attacking each other
instead of Daesh.

Defense
Department spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis said the additional soldiers had
been deployed to Manbij over the past few days.

"We
have brought in some additional forces to be able to do this reassurance and
deterrence mission," he said.

"We
have made visible actions in deploying US forces as part of the coalition in
and around Manbij to reassure and deter - that's to deter parties from
attacking any other parties other than Daesh itself," he added.

The
US has around 500 special operations forces deployed in northern Syria. Their
location is usually kept secret.

Full
report at:

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/03/06/513300/turkey-syria-us-manbij

--------

Former
South Sudanese general forms anti-government rebel group

Mar
7, 2017

A
former South Sudanese army general, who resigned last month, has formed a new
anti-government rebel group, pledging to topple President Salva Kiir.

Lieutenant
General Thomas Cirillo Swaka, the former deputy head of logistics, quit his
position last month, citing abuses by government forces and accusing Kiir of
transforming the country’s military into a “tribal army.”

He
had said the military, police and other security branches systematically
recruited from among the Dinka, the president’s tribe.

Swaka
was one of the three senior military officials who resigned in February,
accusing Kiir’s government of “tribalism,” “corruption” and other abuses.

The
former general announced in a statement on Monday that the new rebel group, called
the National Salvation Front (NSF), “is convinced that to restore sanity and
normalcy in our country, Kiir must go; he must vacate office.”

He
also pledged that his rebel group would “fight to eradicate the malady that has
badly tarnished the image of South Sudan.”

Swaka
also slammed the “above-the-law culture and mentality,” which he says prevailed
among top officials in the military, adding that such an approach is to blame
for rampant crime, including robberies, rapes and embezzlement of public funds.

South
Sudan’s army spokesman, Brig-Gen Lul Ruai Koang, said he had no immediate
comment on the news.

The
rebel group will apparently increase instability in the youngest country in
Africa, which has already been grappling with violence fueled by another rebel
group for more than three years.

A
bloody civil war in South Sudan began in December 2013, when Kiir accused his
former vice president Riek Machar of plotting a coup against him.

The
two sides then got involved in a cycle of retaliatory killings that have split
the impoverished country along ethnic lines between the Dinka and Nuer
communities.

The
two sides then got involved in a cycle of retaliatory killings that have split
the impoverished country along ethnic lines between the Dinka and Nuer communities.

Thousands
of people have been killed and more than three million forced to flee their
homes in the war.

The
two sides eventually signed an agreement in August 2015 to bring the conflict
to an end. As part of the deal, Machar returned to Juba in April 2016 to take
up the post of vice president in a national unity government.

In
July 2016, Kiir sacked Machar again after a new wave of fighting erupted.
Machar is currently in exile in South Africa after fleeing the new spate of
violence.

The
UN and international rights groups have on numerous occasions criticized both
Machar’s loyalists and government troops of committing atrocities during their
military operations.

In
a report obtained by the Associated Press on Monday, the world body said the
Juba government is blocking desperately-needed food aid and restricting UN
peacekeepers.

An
attack on a police post west of Niger has left at least four officers dead.

A
security source said Monday that the attack, which took place a day earlier,
struck Wanzarbe, a town located in the western region of Tillaberi.

“The
provisional toll is four police officers killed in a clear terrorist attack on
Sunday night," said the source, adding that the assault targeted a police
station.

The
government of Niger on Saturday declared a state of emergency in Tillaberi and
other areas near the country’s border with Mali and Burkina Faso.

Tillaberi and neighboring Tahoua region have
witnessed several deadly attacks by militants from MUJAO, a terror outfit
mainly operating in West Africa region. Most of those attacks have targeted
army posts and refugee camps, including a late February assault in Ouallam,
Tillaberi, which killed 16 soldiers and wounded 18 others.

Last
October, a daring attack on a refugee camp in Tahoua also left 22 soldiers
dead.

Officials
say at least 43 people were killed in militant attacks in Tillaberi and Tahoua
between October 2016 and February this year.

Mehdi
Meklat, a 24-year-old writer once hailed as a voice of France’s immigrant youth
community, has fallen from grace following revelations that he has for years
been churning out anti-Semitic, mysogynistic, homophobic and pro-jihadi tweets.

Meklat,
along with writing partner Badrouine Said Abdallah, shot to fame through the
Bondy Blog, a site created for and by sub-Saharan and North African
second-generation immigrants seeking to celebrate “ethnic diversity” and insert
“the stories from the ‘hood into the larger national debates.”

Meklat
has indeed penetrated that debate, but in the position of subject rather than
commentator. His more than 50,000 offensive tweets from 2012 to 2014 have
exposed France’s complex struggle with freedom of speech, and difficulties
integrating the marginalized Muslims immigrants of the suburbs in an era of
rising vitriol.

Meklat’s
tweets covered the gamut of offensive topics. Before the Césars, the French
Oscars, he tweeted: “Bring on Hitler to kill the Jews.” Just before the massacre
at Charlie Hebdo, he tweeted about the magazine’s editor Stephane Charbonnier,
or “Charb”: “Charb, what I’d really like to do is shove some Laguiole knives up
his …” He praised Mohammad Merah, who murdered Jewish schoolchildren in
Toulouse: “I find the phrase, ‘I love death the way you love life,’ of Mohammed
Merah troubling in its beauty.” In blatant homophobia: “Long live the fags,
long live AIDS under President Francois Hollande.”

Of
far-right French politician Marine Le Pen, he wrote that he would “slit her
throat the Muslim way.”

In
a lengthy note on Facebook Meklat apologized for the posts while attempting to
absolve himself of culpability, claiming to be victim of a time when Twitter
was “a digital Wild West. A new object, almost confidential, where no rule was
enacted, no moderation exercised.”

He
had tweeted under the name Marcelin Deschamps, inspired by French Dada artist
Marcel Duchamp. The stunt, he said, was a commentary on the racism of France’s
Old Guard, but “quickly became an evil villain … who couldn’t be stopped” in
his attempts to “provoke.” The social media alter-ego had “nothing to do with
me… It is now dead and should have never existed,” Meklat wrote.

Meklat
is a Muslim Algerian who grew up in Seine-Saint-Denis, one of the immigrant-heavy
suburbs that last month was enveloped in anti-police riots after the alleged
rape of a 22-year-old black man by an officer. To his community, and quickly to
the French intelligentsia, Meklat’s literary talents symbolized hope for a
racial bridge in a sharply divided France that has struggled to balance the
values of multiculturalism against its legally-enshrined (some say militant)
principle of “laïcité,” or secularism.

“You
have life on your side, you have your experiences, your wanderings, your loves,
your past that sticks to your present, anchored in you. But it does not matter
until you have no money. You are therefore a slave,” wrote Meklat with his
writing partner Badrouine Said Abdallah in their recent novel Minute. As Meklat
gained accolades for his creative projects, the media discovered his second
Twitter account, but barely responded. That was until a French tweeter,
identified by Le Monde as a teacher, expressed outrage at one of Meklat’s
television appearances. The teacher pleaded, successfully, for the country to
demand the author answer for Meklat’s obscene and offensive tweets.

Muslims,
especially, have been in the center of France’s long-brewing national identity
crisis. But Meklat’s vast log of tweets have highlighted another, complex layer
to the dilemma: the penchant for anti-Semitism among those minority Muslims
groups on one hand, and, on the other, the complaisance and impunity for hate
speech in the French leftist media.

“The
Meklat affair’ happened precisely because this young journalist represents what
the press wanted for a rebranding, without any consideration for the lateral
damage or for the reality of the problems and difficulties of the neighborhoods
from which such people stem,” wrote political scientist Laurent Bouvet in Le
Figaro, a French daily.

The
“Meklat affair” has also given fuel to France’s rising far-right, including
Marine Le Pen’s niece Marion Le Pen, who placed the blame with France’s
left-wing media.

Meklat’s
fall from grace comes amid tumult in France as well as a rise of a new
generation of immigrant artists who walk a fine line between mocking the racism
of the country’s traditional establishment and using it themselves. French
comedian Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala has built a lucrative career on anti-Semitic
jokes and denial of the Holocaust, which in France has in recent years receded
into a kind of bunker mentality in the wake of numerous violent attacks,
including murders at Jewish elementary schools. Last month, in the first trial
of an underage defendant, a court sentenced a teenager to seven years in jail
for the January 2016 stabbing of a Jewish teacher in Marseille. Many Jews have
fled the country, saying the French government has abandoned its Jewish
communities and has taken no steps towards combating radicalization and casual
anti-Semitism in those communities.

Mehdi
Meklat recently told Télérama magazine that the controversy has caused him to
leave France, saying he was “the target of a life-threatening fascist-sphere,
waiting for me at every street corner.”

“I
created a character, it’s a fictional character,” Meklat told the New York
Times last week from an undisclosed location. “He had no morality, his whole
business was provocation — massive, extreme provocation, bad jokes. We laughed
about it, my friends, the journalists around me.”

But
while Meklat seems intent on evading full responsibility, Christiane Taubira, a
former justice minister who was featured alongside Meklat and Badrouine Said
Abdallah on a recent cover of Inrocks, a French culture magazine, said that she
regretted allowing him to take a platform beside her.

“His
remarks are worthy of consternation as substantial as an atomic crater,” she
posted on Facebook. “And if it was a game, it is too noxious and too dangerous
not to be subject to rigorous scrutiny”